Body & Soul
by weezerz2490
Summary: What if Bartholomew wasn't an only child? With the Countess for a mother and a serial killer for a father, it's no wonder their daughter turned out the way she did. But Peggy March has a secret. She's desperately in love with the one person she can never have. There are a lot of skeletons in the family closet. And they're about to be rattled.
1. Checking In

**Chapter 1: Checking In**

* * *

 _A little girl with her dark blonde curls tied up in velvet ribbons giggled and laughed while a man with dark hair and dark eyes picked her up and spun her around, not caring at all that his impeccably starched suit would be wrinkled._

 _"Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer, do! I'm half crazy, all for the love of you!" he sang with glee, lowering her to let her stand on the toes of his shoes while they danced._

Peggy smiled in her sleep at the sweet memories that visited her in her dreams. Her father would often take time out from his work to play with her. 'Hide and Seek' and 'Tag' were her favorites, because he would let her run around and explore the hotel as much as she wanted. He would pretend to have trouble keeping up with her, but he would always find her and catch her in the end. She was older now, a young woman frozen in her early twenties, and her hair was a couple of shades lighter; a beautiful honey blonde.

 _"It won't be the finest marriage. I can't afford a carriage—"_

 _Swish._ Peggy winced against the bright light that burned through her eyelids and buried her head in her pillow in an attempt to shut it out. At the moment all she wanted was to stay in bed and keep reliving the happy, simpler times of her childhood.

"Come, now! Rise and shine, Miss Peggy!" Miss Evers sang cheerfully while she finished drawing the curtains. "I know it's earlier than you'd prefer, but your father has a surprise for you." The girl had a late night the previous evening after starting out with a bang in room 51.

Peggy carefully turned her head and peeked out from the pillow, opening her eyes slowly to allow them to adjust to the light. The sun was setting, and one of its last rays happened to pick her window to beam through. "A surprise?" Even after all of these years, her father still liked to spoil her.

"Yes. Hurry now, he's waiting for you," Miss Evers said, handing the drowsy young woman a flowing dressing gown that matched her white satin chemise before rushing her out of her room.

Peggy used the short elevator ride up to the 6th floor to collect herself and made sure to button her robe properly before meeting her father. He didn't like it when she wandered around in just a slip. He said it was unbecoming of a young lady. And she didn't feel like starting her day off with a scolding.

 _Ding._ The elevator doors opened, and she stepped out to follow Miss Evers down the hall. She heard a scream from one of the rooms ahead, along with a baby crying, and passionate moans. They passed a young man with bleached hair and sunglasses, just as her father stepped out of the room he was waiting in to meet them. She knew what the surprise was the second she saw him in his killing gear and smelled the tantalizing aroma of blood wafting through the open door. He removed the mask and gave her a wide smile. She had always though he was incredibly handsome with silky, brown hair and alluring, secretive eyes that gave the most intense stares—the same dark eyes that she had inherited. His creamy skin was beautiful and glowed like alabaster. Her father was a refined, classy man but a complete psychopath.

"Good morning, sweetheart! I have a surprise for you," James Patrick March greeted his daughter exuberantly as he ushered her into the room.

The man he had been torturing squirmed in his chair and strained against the ropes that tied him to it. His abused body had been sliced and carved to within an inch of his life. "H-h-help! P-please h-help me!" he cried pathetically, hoping in vain that the new addition to their party might save him.

"This man told me his blood type is AB-negative—your favorite! I know it tastes best fresh, so I saved him for you. Would you like to deliver the final blow?" James asked his little princess.

"Can I?" Peggy asked. She knew that was his favorite part, so she was always very touched the few times he offered.

James gently placed the knife in her hand and closed her fingers around it. "Of course, my darling."

Peggy smiled and turned to face the man. She could see the small ray of hope in his eyes die. But he needn't worry. Either way, his misery would end soon. Without further ado, she stabbed him in the largest artery near his neck and quickly grabbed hold of him as she lowered herself onto his lap and clamped her mouth down over the wound, drinking her fill of the warm blood that gushed from it. His fear and pain tasted like a full and heady red wine. It was intoxicating.

James smiled proudly. He loved watching his daughter feed. But she could be a very messy eater. By the time she finished her meal, their victim's blood covered her mouth and had flowed down to stain her once pristine night clothes a dark crimson. It was beautiful. While she caught her breath, he brushed her disheveled hair away from her face with his fingers and kissed her on the top of her head. "I'll take care of the rest, dear. Why don't you get yourself cleaned up? If I remember correctly, you mentioned you had plans for this evening?"

"Yes." Peggy straightened up and gave her father a kiss on the cheek, leaving behind a bloody lip print. "Thank you, Daddy."

It was completely dark by the time Peggy finished enjoying a good soak in the bath. She removed herself from the tub, dried herself off, and set her record of Glenn Miller's _In the Mood_ to play while she got ready.

Meanwhile, something more modern filled her mother's penthouse. The Countess enjoyed applying her lipstick to _Tear You Apart_ by She Wants Revenge, while her lover for the past twenty years finished his own bath. It was a routine that had become so familiar, it felt more like a choreographed dance.

Peggy swayed and danced a little along to her music while she selected her outfit for the evening.

Donovan finished dressing himself and helped Elizabeth lace up her corset. She cut herself a few lines of coke and inhaled.

They met up in the elevator. Donovan was wearing his usual black. Elizabeth had her hair styled up, and Peggy wore hers down in classic curls, but Mother and daughter were both channeling the color red that evening. Elizabeth was in one of her Yohji Yamamoto dresses from the 90s over a black corset and sparkling bejeweled body chain, and Peggy had chosen to wear the shimmering white and yellow diamond daisy necklace with matching earrings and bracelet similar to the parure set owned by Elizabeth Taylor—the actress, not their beloved resident/employee—that her mother had given to her as a gift decades ago and her red Alexander McQueen dress with a full skirt and puffy, pleated sleeves from the 2013 spring collection under a 50s vintage black silk Balenciaga evening coat with large sleeves.

Elizabeth smiled at her daughter's choice of clothing. She knew James would flip his lid if he saw how low that sweetheart neckline curved down and parted to reveal her daughter's lovely breastbone. He was extremely possessive when it came to Peggy. The homicidal psychopath who called himself her husband had been wrapped around her girl's little finger ever since the day she was born. "Are you still joining us this evening?" she asked her.

"I'm still going to the screening, but I've already eaten. So you don't have to worry about me," Peggy replied with a smile.

"Why bother if you aren't going to hunt?" Donovan asked. He and Peggy didn't get along too well, because she would often cramp his style on purpose. He wasn't sure why she didn't like him. He hadn't done anything to piss her off when they first met, but he had no problem giving her shit back now.

"To watch the movie, of course," she answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, giving him a look that clearly stated her ill opinion of his intelligence.

Donovan rolled his eyes at her. _Brat._

"Settle down, children," Elizabeth said calmly, suppressing a small smile. She was a little disappointed their quality time together would be cut short—Peggy would undoubtedly leave them once they reached the park rather than stick around to be a third wheel. She knew James was probably to blame. Ever since she turned Peggy, he had taken up the habit of saving the blood from his cleaner victims for her, and Peggy would accept anything he put in front of her to make him happy.

As the Countess predicted, Peggy separated from her and Donovan when they arrived at the park. While she enjoyed messing with Donovan, Peggy didn't want to get in her mother's way when she was hunting. She noticed a boy watching her out the corner of her eye and gave him a smile. She could smell his attraction to her in his blood. Beneath that she could taste a note of almonds. He had a gothic look about him and the heavy, dark eyeliner made his blue eyes pop. He wasn't the type she would usually go for, but she could see from the flash of false fangs when he returned her smile that he probably belonged to a subculture that was fascinated with vampires. Boys like him were always extremely turned on by the idea of meeting a real vampire, which meant they actually wanted her to feed from them most of the time. She'd had friends like him before who would gradually collect their own blood for her, providing her with nice source of emergency rations. So when he offered her a space next to him on his blanket, she accepted.

They ended up in his tiny, dark apartment after the movie. The boy, Dylan, couldn't get her clothes off fast enough. She always felt guilty when she did this. Despite the terrible, twisted things he did and the sadistic joy they brought him, she loved her father. She loved him more deeply than he could ever imagine, but not just as a father. As her body matured, her childish adoration had grown into something much darker, something forbidden. She had come to desire him as a man. She felt things about the man named James Patrick March that no daughter should ever feel for their father. It was an unnatural love—one that he could never know about.

Peggy loved her father more than anything, and he was the one she yearned for, to the point where it often became unbearable—but she still had needs, just like any other girl. And every time she acted on them, part of her hoped that it would somehow change her feelings and maybe help end her unhealthy obsession with him. But a larger part already knew there was no going back. From the bottom of her heart, she knew. No one else would ever be able to replace him.

It was early morning, about an hour before sunrise, when Peggy made her walk of shame back to the Cortez. But she wasn't the only one awake. When she stepped through the front door, she was greeted by the sight of her mother's back and an almost completely naked girl with blood gushing out of her slit neck. Behind the girl stood a shocked Iris. Peggy knew straight away that something wasn't right if they were making a scene like this right in front of the main entrance. "What happened?" she asked.

Her mother wiped a speck of blood from her cheek and licked it off the tip of her gloved finger. "Excellent question." Her voice was calm, but her gaze was so cold that it chilled the blood in Iris's veins.

"I don't know what happened," the manager stammered. "She got loose somehow."

"This can never happen again," Elizabeth ordered.

Iris gulped and nodded. She could tell from the tone of finality in the Countess's voice that any repeats of this incident would result in her termination—permanently, and in every sense of the word.

Elizabeth turned and looked at her daughter. She smiled and hooked arms with her to walk to the elevator. They were both careful not to get blood on their shoes while sidestepping the corpse. "Seems like you had a good night." She could smell the sex on her. She was glad. She was one of the extremely few people aware of her daughter's feelings and felt it was unhealthy for her to spend too much time with James.

"It was okay," Peggy shrugged. She didn't always find sex without an emotional attachment enjoyable. But this evening's experience was more satisfying than most. At least she was able to work off some of the tension she had built up.

"I'm assuming whoever it was is still alive, since you didn't bring them back to the hotel." Elizabeth knew her daughter sometimes spared potential meals, but she wasn't worried. Peggy knew how to pick her targets. And family always came first for her.

Peggy readjusted her coat. "Yes. I thought I might see him again." She had tested her theory about his willingness to comply with her unique feeding habits by sampling a small taste from him while they were together. He was in ecstasy.

She kissed her mother goodnight when the elevator reached her floor and retreated to her room to get some rest. Ordinarily she would have wished her father goodnight, too, but she always had trouble facing him after being intimate with another man. She knew it was ridiculous. She wasn't in a romantic relationship with him and never would be. It didn't seem to bother him at all when she had brought lovers back to the hotel. In fact, he encouraged it. She sighed and flopped face down onto the bed, mentally kicking herself for being stupid enough to fall into this emotional pit hole.

James knocked on his daughter's door that morning at what he deemed a reasonable hour, but received no answer. So he decided to let himself in. What he saw inside the familiar room startled him. There, sprawled out gracefully on her bed, was his little sleeping beauty, as he had expected to find her. What he did not expect was to find her in a dress made of sheer material, with what appeared to be only a black leotard covering her lower body, and the majority of her chest left exposed for the entire world to see. _"Marguerite Frances March!_!"

Peggy nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard her father's shout. She quickly sat up and turned to look at him with wide eyes, startled to find him glaring at her. For a moment, she was confused—he only called her by her full name when he was angry with her—and then she realized that she had fallen asleep without changing and was still wearing her outfit from the night before.

James was livid that she had disobeyed him. He could be flexible on some matters, but not this. "You know the rules, Peggy!" he scolded her sternly.

"You never yell at Mom for dressing like this," she countered, scooting back off of the bed when he took a step closer, immediately on the defensive.

"That's different! She isn't you!" he countered angrily, irritated that she kept trying to dodge him every time he moved closer. Did she think he was going to hit her? No, she should know better than that. Unlike his own father, he had never raised a hand against his children. But he was beginning to think maybe he _should_ have given her a few decent spankings when she was younger. She was severely lacking in discipline. This wasn't the first time he had caught her wearing something inappropriate, and it made him wonder how often she had gotten away with it behind his back. Though, if anyone was to blame, it was probably _her_. He knew he couldn't count on Elizabeth to correct Peggy in events like this. If anything, she was probably the one who had encouraged her. His wife loved to undermine his authority over their daughter. But Peggy usually chose to listen to him over Elizabeth anyway, so it was particularly frustrating to have her disobey him so stubbornly now. "Change out of that scandalous outfit, right now!"

Peggy clenched her fists. "Fine!" Since she was equally frustrated with him for continuing to treat her like child, despite being eighty-eight years old, she decided to do something a little wicked. She started undressing right in front of him.

James crossed his arms and stood his ground. At first, he was determined to let her make a fool of herself to teach her lesson, but she had her back turned to him, and as she lowered her dress, he could see that she wasn't wearing a single stitch beneath it. That doused the fire behind his temper faster than a bucket of ice water. "I didn't mean it so literally, dear!" he said quickly, rushing over to pull it back up. "At least wait until I've left the room."

Peggy held her dress in place while he practically flew from her room. With the door shut securely behind him, she let the dress drop to the floor and stepped out of it to take a shower.

James stood outside in in the hall and waited impatiently for his impetuous daughter to finish changing. He reminded himself that she was at a difficult age. In fact, she had been at a difficult age ever since she hit puberty. Peggy was normally the most reasonable person in their family, but she could become frighteningly impulsive and stubborn when upset. It took a lot to make her act unbalanced. Considering this, it worried him when he wondered what the cause behind this particular fit could be.

The shower helped her to calm down some, so she was in a slightly better mood when she opened the armoire to pick her outfit for the day. She settled on an Alexander McQueen dress designed for Givenchy in the 90s. It was one of her favorites. She admired the detail put into its design—the brown bodice with Lesage embroidery of blossom and foliage, tiny glass buttons from neck to waist front and back encasing dried flower sprigs, the skirt of fine brown and ivory houndstooth check with curved satin edges embroidered with ikat-like motifs, and gigot sleeves of brown taffeta. Then she pulled out a pair of nude T-strap Valentino Rockstud pumps, and she pulled her hair up in a French twist, leaving out some curled sections in the front to frame her face. She kept her makeup light and natural for the day. For jewelry, she wore a pair of Gucci daisy earrings with turquoise petals, green crystal leaves, and white pearls dangling from the bottom of their stems; and her usual daytime staple—the silver and gold locket with an elaborate Art Deco daisy motif that her father gave her when she turned sweet sixteen. He had her mother arrange for it to be created specially for her by Tiffany & Co. decades ago, but someone must have found its design in the archives, because they released an all silver version of it for the Ziegfeld collection. To say that her father had been upset when he found out would be an understatement, and she was fairly certain he was still steamed about it.

When she finally stepped out of the room, James was very gratified to see that she had selected an appropriately modest outfit this time. His anger melted when she looked at him with those warm, brown eyes. He could never stay mad at her. "It was a lovely dress," he said, taking her hands in his. "But wear something under it next time."

Peggy nodded and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, Daddy."

James smiled and withdrew one of his hands so he could put an arm around her. "Let's get you some breakfast, darling."

Elizabeth was in her suite, pouring herself a glass of the hair of the dog that bit her the previous evening, when Donovan burst into the room rather dramatically wearing only a pair of black boxer briefs and a robe.

"We've been invaded—shanghaied!" he exclaimed hotly, stalking over to her side. "Some goddamn New Yorker is sizing up my suite," he added, pointing in the direction of the doors he had swanned through only a second ago.

"A little early for you, isn't it?" she asked him calmly, completely unfazed by his drama.

Elizabeth paused when she heard an unfamiliar voice in the next room and suddenly smelled the blood of three new people. "I know you'll prefer the view from the space we just saw, but here's the other half of the floor plan." It seemed they had finished sizing up Donovan's suite and moved across the hall to hers.

"The lighting is, of course, a challenge," the realtor continued as she lead the prospective buyer and his child into her sanctuary without bothering to ask permission, "and I don't know if all this neon is the answer."

Elizabeth turned to face the invaders with her drink in hand and immediately recognized the man's face. "Will Drake. I'm so pleased to meet you." She could see from the way the corner of his mouth turned up in a half smirk that he was pleased she had recognized him.

Donovan glanced between the Countess and the fashion designer. He recognized the name and wondered what she was up to.

"I was completely impressed with the gown you made for Mrs. Obama," Elizabeth complimented the man as she approached him, deciding to play to his ego. "It was the state dinner for... the Spaniards..."

"The Spaniards," Will said simultaneously, "yes." He smiled. He was used to admiration, but he felt especially flattered to receive it from such an elegantly exotic woman. He could tell by her classically understated jewelry, perfectly coiffed platinum blonde hair, sophisticated makeup, and the dark and eccentric hand-painted dress from Valerj Pobega that she had excellent taste. "Kind of you to mention."

Elizabeth offered him the drink in her hand.

"I'm on a cleanse," he declined with regret.

"Not anymore," she insisted, twisting his arm in a very charming manner.

Will laughed and accepted the drink. It was an exquisitely smooth scotch, warm enough to give the drinker a feeling of pleasant satisfaction without burning their throat like paint stripper. And then he noticed his son enacting some mischief. He was touching a large, reflective sculpture with his bare hands. "Lachlan!" he said, snapping his fingers to make sure he had his attention. "Honestly. Fingerprints are really hard to get off."

"Messes are always forgiven," Elizabeth said kindly, making the embarrassed father smile. She turned her attention to the naughty child. "The first time."

Will's jaw dropped when he noticed another shiny sculpture displayed on a pedestal across the room. He was instantly drawn toward it. "Is..."

"Yes," Elizabeth answered proudly. "It's an Arik Levy, and it doesn't come with the building. Of course, I'm hopeful you're as interested in the character of The Cortez as we are."

Will tore his gaze away from the beautiful sculpture to glance at her for a moment before nodding and turning back to face the art. "There's energy here. I walk through New York streets, and I don't hear the music anymore. No more echoes of what was there. Blocks are toppled, history erased, weirdoes banished. This place is far enough away that it speaks to me... sings, even."

"Well, I cannot wait to see what you make of it," Elizabeth told him, holding his gaze when he turned around to face her again.

Will smiled and raised his glass to her, taking another sip.

"Wow, that's... that's really beautiful," Donovan said sardonically, slightly jealous of the attention he was receiving from the Countess and pissed at the rude awakening he had received. "So where are weirdos like us supposed to live, huh? Got any songs telling you anything about that?"

"Perhaps you could show our neighbor the James Turrell light sculpture?" Elizabeth suggested. Her tone was deceptively light, but anyone who knew her well knew that was an order, and she was hinting that Donovan would do well to be nice to the man who now owned their home. There was no point in making an enemy of him this early in the game.

Donovan sighed and headed for the door, moving to lead the way.

"Dad, can I stay and look at the records?" Lachlan asked, already seated on the floor in front of them.

"Of course you can," Elizabeth said before his father could reject the idea out of politeness.

Will Drake gave her a grateful smile and followed Donovan and he realtor out of the room to view the light sculpture.

Elizabeth approached the boy sitting on her floor.

"People aren't supposed to live in hotels," he said, looking up at her.

She held her hands behind her back, nonplused. She had a secret weapon for boys like him. "Well, maybe this place is special." She lowered herself to his level and gently took one of his hands in hers. "I want to show you something you'll enjoy." The boy hesitated. "We'll only be gone a moment."

"I lived in New York, many years ago," Elizabeth said when they reached their designated floor and stepped out of the elevator to walk down the hall. "I loved roaming the streets, devouring the pulse of the city. Electrifying." She felt a wave of nostalgia and thought she might take Peggy there again. She had enjoyed their last trip to the Big Apple together, back when she was still a normal human. Elizabeth had even shown her the neighborhood she used to live in with her own parents. "I miss it very much." She missed the people she left behind. "Did your father give you a choice when it came time to leave?"

"My dad says I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," the boy replied.

"We're not strangers, Lachlan," she reassured him. "We're going to be great friends. Here we are." Elizabeth approached the secret door, which was camouflaged to resemble an ordinary wall.

"What's so special about a hallway?" Lachlan asked.

Elizabeth smiled and knocked three times on the door. Then she pushed it open.

Lachlan's eyes widened in surprise when light streamed out into the hallway, and he peered into the room to see it filled with other children sitting on black leather couches, playing retro video games on the and huge screens mounted in the white walls. He stepped inside and saw that there was a colorful candy station, too. Elizabeth put her arm around the boy and led him further into the room. She knew he would like it.

James had originally designed the area to be a playroom for Peggy, but she had long outgrown it, so it belonged to her younger, adopted siblings now. They had it repainted and completely modernized in the eighties.

Elizabeth stopped the tour when they reached the child she thought Lachlan would get along with best. "Holden, we have a guest," she informed the most recent addition to her family. "Where are your manners, angel?"

Holden looked up from his game to greet the other boy. "Hello. Wanna play?"

Lachlan smiled. He decided he was going to like it there.


	2. Chutes and Ladders

**Chapter 2: Chutes and Ladders  
**

* * *

Peggy was almost finished getting ready to have dinner with her father that evening. Her meals with him were generally less formal that ones he shared with her mother. But she paused when she thought she heard someone in her room.

"Help..." the miserable cry echoed again.

She furrowed her brow and followed it over to the air vent. She wondered who it could be. She might have been more concerned if it was a voice she recognized, but screams weren't that unusual in this hotel, so she wasn't too alarmed. Curious, Peggy slipped on a random pair of slippers and headed out to find the source of the noise. She ran into Sally on her way down.

"What's wrong?" Peggy asked when she saw how particularly irritable the emotionally unstable ghost seemed that evening.

Sally scoffed. "You heard the screaming, right? Well, John's checked in."

"So?" Peggy said carelessly. She didn't see why that was cause to be upset. John had stayed with them many times before. She thought Sally would be excited to see him again.

"So, he checked in as a cop this time!"

That surprised Peggy, and she immediately became serious. "I see." That was a horse of an entirely different color.

The two women hurried into the ballroom. They could hear the girl screaming for help the whole way. Iris was there, watching over the Countess's adopted children while they fed from the remaining Swedish tourist. "Can't you shut her up!?" Sally yelled at the older woman. "We can hear her through the duct! Did you forget a cop is staying here?"

"He's away at work," Iris explained calmly while she wiped the blender and silver platters clean, ignoring the captive girl's whimpering. "She'll stop. She always gives up in a minute."

Peggy noticed Sally had tears streaming down her cheeks and handed her a clean handkerchief that was embroidered with her initials framed a chain of daisies. Sally accepted it, and, as she wiped her eyes, the Swedish girl fell silent.

"See?" Iris said. But it wasn't because she had given up.

"Yuck," Holden said, pulling away from her wrist. "Tastes gross."

His older brother, Harold, also pulled away. Apparently he agreed. Iris dropped what she was holding and quickly moved to check the girl's pulse. Peggy could tell from where she was that it had stopped beating. "That's because she's dead," she told the boys calmly, holding her hands out to them. Dear Harry, who was the eldest of Peggy's adopted 'siblings' and had known her the longest, immediately abandoned the unappetizing corpse to take her hand.

"She's right. Stop," Iris told Holden when he didn't listen right away.

Sally closed her eyes and took a long draw on her cigarette. The Cortez had claimed another victim.

While Sally escorted the boys back to their playroom, Peggy accompanied Liz and Iris to dump the corpse.

"Quiet night in?" Liz hummed, pushing the cart. She admired Peggy's outfit, a lovely sleeveless dress in turquoise with gorgeous embroidery from the Oscar de la Renta Spring/Summer 2014 collection.

"That was the plan," Peggy agreed, following her through the laundry room door, which Iris had opened for them.

Iris entered ahead of them and opened the death chute, too. Miss Evers, who had been in the middle of ironing, looked up when she saw them.

"It's a horror!" the maid exclaimed, aghast. She stripped away the sheet that covered what was left of the Swedish girl. "I'll have to use ammonia to refresh these linens."

Liz began to remove her kimono jacket, but Peggy stopped her with a kind smile. "Let me." Peggy liked using the death chute. If you ignored that what you were dumping used to be a person, it was actually quite fun to watch them slide down and disappear into the darkness with a distant thump. For her it was like dropping a pebble into a well to see how long it took to hear a splash.

"Of course, sweetie," Liz said, stepping aside to let her take her place by the cart. She understood that, given the activities of her mother and father, Peggy had been exposed to death and violence from a very young age, and had become desensitized toward it. To Peggy, death was just another part of life.

Iris found it creepy. She didn't know how someone who looked so innocent and smiled so sweetly could enjoy dumping bodies. Peggy was definitely a March.

"I've always admired the Swedes and their chocolate," Liz mused while Peggy lifted the cart to slide the corpse into the chute.

"Chocolate's the Swiss," Iris corrected her.

"Is it?" Liz asked Peggy.

Peggy gave her a sympathetic smile to let her know she was wrong. "Sorry, honey."

Iris bunched up the remaining sheet and tossed in a scoop of deodorizing powder.

Peggy smiled when she heard the _thump_ of the body hitting the mattress at the bottom.

Elizabeth answered the knock at her suite's door to find Iris standing outside with her evening meal on a silver platter.

"That's the last of it," the dumpy woman informed her.

"Thank you," Elizabeth responded politely, taking the crystal decanter.

Iris lowered the platter, but made no move to leave. "Where's Donovan?"

Elizabeth turned away from her and reached for the door. "Getting dressed, I hope."

"It's just been a while since I've seen him—"

The Countess slammed the door shut in his mother's face. "You're torturing that woman," she told Donovan, who finally came out from hiding.

"I was a junkie because I wanted to escape from my mother," he explained, lighting a cigarette. "You made it so I never can."

She poured the blood into two fluted crystal glasses. "Why haven't you changed? We're going to miss the opening." She may still be in her kimono robe, but she had at least finished completing the rest of her primping. All she needed to do now was slip on her dress and the shoes she picked to match it, and she would be ready to go. Whereas, he was completely unprepared.

Donovan sighed and sat down on the couch. "We don't have space for any more art." He reached out and took his glass of blood, savoring the flavor as he drank.

Elizabeth didn't find hers as satisfying with his reluctance to play along souring her mood.

Donovan inhaled deeply and set the empty glass back on the table before lying back to lounge on the couch. "Besides, you don't have the money, babe."

She closed the gap between them, towering over him. "We're not going for the art, dumbass." She lowered herself to straddle him seductively, to tempt him into joining her. "We're going for the hunt."

"We just fed," he reminded her. "Come on. Let's stay in. We could binge-watch _House of Cards_."

The Countess gazed down at her smiling lover and cradled his head in her hands, caressing the strong jaw and cheekbones that had attracted her to him.

Donovan's smile fell. He could tell by the look in her eyes that she wasn't pleased with him. So it was no surprise when she left him there on the couch and retreated to her boudoir to prepare to leave without him.

Elizabeth stood there for a moment and silently pondered the seemingly stagnant state of their love affair. Donovan was beautiful, but he had become too complacent. If he no longer felt the need to make an effort to be with her or attempt to excite her, then perhaps it was time to let him go.

Peggy returned to her room in time to catch the phone ringing. She picked it up answered. "Hello?"

"Peggy, it's mother. Come hunting with me."

Peggy was a little surprised. "I thought you were going to an event at the art museum with Donovan."

"Forget him," Elizabeth said dismissively. "Let's have a girl's night out, just the two of us."

Peggy glanced at the clock. It was almost time to head to her father's room. "Well, if you really want to..." She didn't think he would be too disappointed since they ate together every other day, and he always gave her mother whatever she desired. Peggy figured he would probably want her to go. And she thought it would be nice to spend some quality time with her mother without Donovan there. "Alright, but I'll need a few minutes to change."

Elizabeth was pleased with her answer. At least her daughter still knew how to have a good time. "I'll be waiting."

Peggy threw on a purple Oscar de la Renta evening gown, its matching evening jacket, and a pair of ruby, emerald, sapphire, and diamond chandelier earrings by Bvlgari, and pinned her already curled hair up in an elegant style. She made some adjustments to her makeup and grabbed a pair of decent heels that went with her dress. She also grabbed her own silver and diamond hunting glove. She stepped out of her room in time to catch Miss Evers making her rounds on the floor.

"Oh, Miss Evers," she called, getting the maid's attention.

Miss Evers turned to face her. "Yes, Miss Peggy?"

"Could you please let my father know I'll be out hunting with my mother and give him my apologies for me," Peggy said sweetly while she put on her glove. "I promise to bring back some _takeout_."

Mother and daughter alighted gracefully from their hired car to enter the Chris Burden's street lamp sculpture at the Wilshire Boulevard entrance to the museum to join the black tie party taking place around them, stalking through the lampposts among their fellow party-goers until they found the perfect victims.

"She what?" James demanded, spinning around to face Miss Evers when she delivered his daughter's message to him. "Elizabeth had her last night!" Peggy was supposed to be his tonight. Could she still be upset with him over their earlier argument? He thought they were past that already.

"That is what she said, sir. She did promise to bring someone back for you, however," Miss Evers reminded him.

James huffed and poured himself a drink. "Yes. I suppose that will have to do," he said moodily, seating himself in one of the armchairs. He eyed the dishes waiting under silver cloches and the cravat of blood he had prepared for her. He set his drink down and lit a cigarette. "Take the food back to the kitchen. Have the chef keep it warm for her until she returns. And have the blood added to her reserves."

Peggy left her mother to have fun with the man she chose, and led her own victim from the elevator.

"Have fun," her mother called after her before its doors closed.

The beautiful redhead giggled giddily as they traipsed down the hall together to room 78. "I can't believe you live here."

"You like it?" Peggy asked, giving the young woman a charming smile that made her blush.

"It's beautiful. Just like you," she replied dreamily, so busy gazing at Peggy with admiration that she hadn't even noticed they entered the room.

"Yes," James agreed, appearing behind his daughter with his hands on her shoulders, placing a kiss on the top of her head. "I'm very proud of them. Excellent choice, darling." This one seemed like she would be a good squealer.

Their victim's brow furrowed with confusion. "Who..." Their prey seemed to have finally sensed the danger she was in and had begun to back away from them, when Miss Evers slammed the door shut. A squeal of fright escaped her red lips.

"Ah! So she is a squealer!" James exclaimed with delight, grabbing the terrified girl by her hair. The more dramatic the reaction, the more satisfying the kill!

"By the way, daddy," Peggy said while they enjoyed their meal together after her father had finished having his fun, pausing to take another sip of blood from her glass. "I heard some news from Mom tonight that I think you'll be interested in."

"Oh?" James said, his curiosity piqued.

"Someone bought the hotel yesterday, a man named Will Drake."

That only gave him pause for a second. "I see," he said, having another drink of Armagnac. "And what do we know about him so far?"

"He's a well-known fashion designer, who's moved here from New York. He has a son, but I've heard he prefers men. Mom doesn't think he'll be a problem."

"Well, that is good news, then," James decided. His wife was generally an excellent judge of character, and while she may enjoy throwing him through a loop every now and then, she would never lie to Peggy in regard to such a serious matter. "Do you enjoy this man's work?"

Peggy took a moment to consider her answer. "There were a few of his earlier creations that I liked, but I think the quality of his work has been slipping lately."

"That is a shame," James said. He was planning to have her pick one of the man's designs out as a birthday gift if they were a favorite, or to suggest she treat herself to one with the trust fund he left her. Peggy had invested more wisely than her mother, so she still had a nice sum of money in her account. Not enough to buy his hotel back for him, as she had once offered to attempt, but more than enough to support herself. "Have you any idea of what you would like for your birthday this year, dear?"

"Isn't it a bit early for that?" she asked. She was a winter baby. Her birthday wouldn't be until December. "We haven't even finished October yet." If anything, she should be asking him that question, though she had already taken care of her gift to him.

"I suppose," he mused, hoping she wasn't going to try to tell him she didn't need anything again. She once tried to tell him she was old enough not to need a party or a present every year, but he insisted on marking the occasion until she gave in. "Speaking of October, darling, are you planning to attend my Devil's Night soiree this year?"

"Yes," Peggy replied, wondering why he would ask that. She attended every year, and she would also assist him with some of the preparations. "Is there a reason why I shouldn't?"

"Not at all," he assured her with a smile. It was always a delight to have her. He enjoyed showing her off to his protégés, though he did sometimes wish Eileen would better respect his daughter's personal space. "Only, I was thinking about inviting John this year." Depending on how the evening developed, she might be required to leave early, for her own safety.

That surprised Peggy. "John? But he's alive."

"Yes, but he is terribly confused. I thought meeting the others might help to set him straight," he reasoned.

"I'll add his name to the list, then," Peggy said. Organizing the menu and table arrangements was her designated duty for the party. Their current chef only spoke Italian, so her father preferred to leave dealing with him to her, since her mother had insisted she have lessons on the subject when she was younger.

James stood up and walked the length of the table to give her a kiss on the forehead. "Thank you, sweetheart." He knew Peggy would understand how important John and his work were to him.

The morning after Will Drake finished settling into his new home, Peggy went to have a drink from her stash and found the lobby below a hive of activity.

"What's going on down there?" she asked Liz, settling on stool at the bar.

"Apparently, we're hosting a fashion show today," Liz answered, placing a glass of blood, mixed with a drop or two of gin and grenadine for extra flavor, in front of her. Liz noted that Peggy appeared to be feeling nostalgic today, because she was dressed head to toe in a vintage Elsa Schiaparelli ensemble from the 40s, consisting of a jet beaded black tulle hat, a cropped jacket in sophisticated pink twill trimmed with contrasting black Spanish-influenced embroidery over a black mermaid dress. Her hair and makeup were in a classic style from the same era. She exuded _chic_ from every pore.

"Ah, of course," Peggy said. She should have known. The new owner was a fashion designer, after all.

"How did your father take the news?" Liz inquired cautiously. She still remembered the terrifying rage he flew into when he found out the Countess had lost the hotel.

"Very well, actually," Peggy replied. She could tell from the expression on Liz's face that she didn't believe her. "He seemed more concerned about John."

"Who isn't concerned about John these days?" Liz shrugged. The man was a walking train wreck waiting to happen. "I think I'll go mingle. Teach the people from _Vogue_ how to Vogue."

Peggy laughed in amusement as the colorful bartender left to indulge her sense of irony. She finished her drink, and felt someone else's eyes on her. She could smell the scent of an expensive designer cologne. She turned and found Will Drake staring at her.

"Sorry," he apologized when he realized he had been caught. He held his hand out to her and introduced himself. "Will Drake."

"Peggy March. A pleasure," Peggy returned his greeting politely with a handshake.

"I couldn't help but admire your outfit. Is that a reproduction?" he asked.

"It's all original."

He was stunned. "It looks brand new. How did you get it in such pristine condition?"

Peggy smiled. "The Cortez has an excellent laundress."

"Good to know," Will said with a smile. He spotted a familiar face standing on the stairs across the way. "Excuse me, there's an old friend I need to speak with. Please, feel free to join the party. I hope you enjoy the show."

"I'm sure I will," Peggy answered politely, watching him walk away.

Will Drake's fashion show was more eventful than she had expected. Peggy didn't think the collection itself was too spectacular, but the people made it interesting. Poor Sally made a scene when her name wasn't on the admission list. Despite denying her entrance, Will and the woman with him somehow talked John and his young daughter into attending. Then, her mother and Donovan made a sufficiently stylish entrance and seated themselves in two empty seats under one of the spotlights. Dressed in all white with dramatic makeup, she had gone full Alexis Carrington, and he wore a white suit and black top to match. The climax of the show came with the appearance of an attractive male model with a hairstyle that reminded Peggy of a cross between a rooster and a cockatoo. She heard whispers of the name "Tristan Duffy" and his infamous reputation. She soon saw why. As soon as he was out on the floor, he grabbed the champagne glass of the woman sitting in front of her, knocked back all of its contents in one go, and smashed it on the floor. The coppery smell of his rage was almost overwhelming, and Peggy noticed a small blood stain on his white scarf, which was the next item he chose to discard after removing it to tease a couple of women. As he made his way back down the aisle on her mother's side of the room, the aggressive model grabbed another woman and French kissed her until her boyfriend in the next seat shoved him away. The model grabbed the other man's face, but the boyfriend was no pushover. He stood up and shoved the model hard enough to send him crashing to floor. The furious model then snatched the stem of the broken champagne glass, ready to draw blood, until his eyes met her mother's. Time seemed to stop for a moment while they held each other's gaze, and her mother exerted her influence over him. But it didn't take long for Donovan to put his arm around her in a possessive move and pull her closer to him. The model seemed to snap out of his daze and stood up again. Fortunately, the pause appeared to have been long enough to cool his temper, because instead of using the sharp glass in his hand, he mocked the boyfriend with a mimed kiss and kept walking. The audience applauded when the rest of the models came out to conclude that section of the show. However, Peggy could still hear her mother and Donovan talking across the aisle.

"What was that about?" Donovan asked.

Her mother's eyes never strayed from the model's back. "He's full of rage. I can still smell it. Like copper."

Seeing the desire in her eyes, Peggy was certain her mother had found a new target.

The minute the model, Tristan Duffy, returned to the dressing room, he started using a makeup canister to smash up more pills to snort.

"You need to get your shit together," Will Drake said sternly as he stormed into the room.

Tristan tried to ignore him, but the asshole grabbed the makeup canister and knocked all the pills he crushed off his dressing table.

"The show is not over," Will reminded him angrily, throwing the canister back on the table, scattering the rest of its contents, and headed for the door.

Tristan grabbed a pair of scissors and stood up. "It is for me."

Will stopped and turned around to face him. His eyes widened in shock when Tristan used the scissors to slice his own cheek with a career-ending wound.

Tristan didn't care whether it left a scar or not. The look on Drake's face was worth it. "I'm done with modeling."

When the show was over, Peggy returned to the bar for a real drink.

"What can I get you this time, doll?" Liz asked. "How about a margarita for our pretty Marguerite?"

"I'll have a _Between the Sheets_ ," Peggy ordered with a wink, earning a smile from Liz. The drink used to be called _Maiden's Prayer_ when Peggy was younger, after a popular song that came out only three years before her father was born. But it had taken on a name with more naughty connotations since then.

An aroma of lust crept up on the youngest March, and Peggy followed the hand she suddenly found on her shoulder up to the face of an attractive young woman with curled brunette hair, only a few years older than she appeared to be, in a modern version of a dress inspired by the thirties.

"I'd like to have _you_ between the sheets," the stranger whispered seductively in her ear.

Peggy wasn't interested for two reasons. First, while she enjoyed the company of other women, she preferred men for lovers. Second, she'd already had blood, and she was hungry for something else now. "Sorry, sweetheart, but you're not my type," she told the woman gently, taking her drink with her as she left to order herself a pizza.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth had returned to her bedroom to change into something more comfortable. Donovan was enjoying watching her undress until he heard a _crash_ in the next room. He quickly left to investigate, but she wasn't worried. She recognized the scent of the intruder's blood. Copper. It was that beautiful model from the show. His face was so nostalgic that she had almost thought it was _him_ until she noticed those blue eyes. They should have been warm and brown, like her daughter Peggy's. Her maudlin reverie was interrupted by the sound of glass shattering as Donovan's confrontation with the man escalated.

Deciding it may be time to intervene, Elizabeth stepped out of her bedroom in time to see Donovan pin her new source of interest to the floor.

Donovan tightened his hands around the thieving model's throat. "I've made a rule to stay away from junkies, but I'm going to make an exception with you." He leaned down and licked the blood from the cut on Tristan's face, savoring its flavor. He was startled when he suddenly felt a strong hand grip his shoulder, and looked up to see Elizabeth.

"Let him go," she ordered firmly, her eyes on the choking model.

He wasn't happy about it, but Donovan did as he was told.

As soon as he was free, Tristan gasped for air and staggered to his feet, getting the hell out of dodge before they changed their minds. He couldn't help but glance back at his sexy savior on his way out.

The moment he was gone, Elizabeth focused her attention on Donovan, who was staring at her with a questioning expression on his face. "Hmm," she hummed with tiny shrug. Her reason for sparing him would become clear in its own time.

James was relaxing in his room with a drink in hand while listening to his favorite song, _Body and Soul_ , the 1945 version recorded by The Benny Goodman Band that Peggy had given to him after his original version by Paul Whiteman and Jack Fulton wore out. He found it helped him pass the time, to tolerate the infernal stillness that came between his murders. The stillness was interrupted when an intruder crept into the room and made a beeline for his dresser to examine the niceties he had on display. Ordinarily that would have been the end of the young man, but James sensed he was a kindred spirit. The rage and barely contained violence rolled off of him in waves. James decided to show himself.

"Take any piece you like," he said, startling the young man so badly that he jumped up and spun around to face him like a wild, cornered animal. "None of it has any meaning for me." Everything truly important to him—his trophies and keepsakes from Peggy's childhood—was already safely locked away behind the armoire in his old office. James raised another glass of scotch and offered it to his visitor. "You look like you need a drink."

"I'm good," Tristan said, removing a small packet of cocaine from his jacket pocket, while James added the contents of the second glass to his own before setting it back on the table.

Looking back at the young man, James recognized the white drug from his own early days of experimentation. "Oh. Bolivian marching powder." He strolled over to join him. "Too tame for my taste. I've found a far better way to stimulate."

"What?" Tristan scoffed in disbelief. "I've tried it all, man. There is nothing better." He sniffed the powder off his thumb.

"You know," James told him. "In your black heart of hearts, you know. You're just like me."

"I don't think so, dude," Tristan retorted.

"Well, I had it all once," James said, turning away to meander back to the chest of drawers he kept his booze on. "Fortune, fame. But nothing satisfied. 'To thine own self be true,'" he quoted, raising his glass. "Polonius." James finished off the rest of his drink, set it down next to the other, and opened the drawer where he kept his favorite gun. He turned back to face the trouble youth again. "I'll show you what you've been dreaming of." He held his hands behind his back and whistled for Miss Evers.

"Yes, sir?" she answered immediately, dragging the young woman she had restrained with ropes into the room with her. "Stop your sniveling," she told her, then directed her attention back to her boss. "I found this one in the bar, sir. Prostituting herself."

"Ah," James said. Prostitutes always were the easiest targets. The easiest to grab, and the easiest to disappear without a fuss.

"There's nothing she won't do for a dollar," Miss Evers added. "I heard she even tried to proposition our Miss Peggy."

"Interesting," James remarked, gazing down at the whimpering woman. While her style of dress, reminiscent of bygone era, was more aesthetically pleasing than the usual lack of imagination showed by her kind, he was unaware of his daughter having that particular predilection. To his knowledge, she never ventured further than kissing when engaging with her own sex. Unlike her mother. Which was fine with him, because it gave him less to worry about.

"Sorry, man, bondage really bores me," Tristan said, shaking his head.

"Me, too," James replied with a smile. He placed the gun in the young man's hand. "Pull the trigger and take her last breath. It's exhilarating."

Tristan let go of the gun and tried to rip his hand from his grip. "You're crazy."

James wouldn't let go. He felt compelled to provide guidance to the youngsters who had yet to find their calling.

"Get off me, man," Tristan grunted, struggling to get away.

James's patience with the young man had begun to reach its limits. He granted his wish and released him, shoving him onto the bed beside the terrified prostitute. His cravat came loose in the struggle, so he decided he might as well remove it completely. The other man's eyes widened at the sight of the gash on his neck, and the prostitute shrieked. "Well," James said, moving closer to the prostitute's side of the bed with the gun in hand. "You got to go out and grab life," he told the young man, aiming the gun at the girl. He pulled the trigger without hesitation. The gunshot echoed throughout the room, and her blood and brains splattered beautifully against the white sheets.

"Oh! Jesus!" Tristan shrieked, flying off the bed to haul his ass out of there before they got him next.

"Laundress?" James said.

"Yes, sir?" responded Miss Evers.

"Replace the linens," he ordered.

"Right away, sir," she said, springing into action. "I'll get the ammonia. What a glorious stain!"

While his faithful maid took care of the clean up in his bedroom, James dragged the prostitute's body into the bathroom and propped her up so her neck would hang over the tub. He had to work quickly if he wanted to beat the degradation of its cells. Then he retrieved a knife, a funnel, and an empty decanter from one of his cupboards and set about collecting the young woman's blood for his daughter while it was still fresh. She looked healthy enough to be safe.

Elizabeth rode the elevator down. She had a feeling she would run into the beautiful model again if she did. She was unsurprised when the doors opened on the 7th floor, and quickly pulled him inside. His type had a habit of ending up on James's floor, but he would be safe with her. Mostly.

Peggy was back by the bar, seated at one of the tables with her pepperoni, mushroom, and olive pizza and a coke. The lounge was emptier now, so she was able to enjoy her meal in peace. Mostly.

"Shouldn't you have ordered a smaller one?" Iris asked when she happened by and noticed what she was eating. "The chef probably would've made you a personal sized pizza if you asked." She had the vocabulary to do it, too.

"Oh, Iris," Peggy sighed. "Every pizza is a personal pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself."

Liz, who was taking advantage of the lull to clean the bar, snickered.

Iris was surprised the girl wasn't worried about getting fat. Just because she was immortal, didn't mean she couldn't still pack on the pounds.

"I was fortunate enough to have my time frozen while I still had a fast metabolism," Peggy stated calmly, giving her a knowing smile as if she had read her mind.

Iris decided she should probably go mind her own business elsewhere.

"I look amazing," Tristan said, admiring himself in Elizabeth's mirror.

She smiled and watched while he gasped in awe at the marvelous changes the virus had already made on him. He looked more like her love than ever.

Tristan laughed. "I would do me. No zits, no blackheads. Mmm. All that crystal was wrecking my skin, making me look like something on that website, _Faces of Meth_. Now I look, what, like," he smacked his lips, "twenty-four." He spun around to face her, striking a Captain Morgan pose with his foot against the back of her chair. "Goddamn!"

Elizabeth laughed. "The beauty of the virus is you never age. You now have a supercharged immune system," she explained, caressing his chest with the tip of her nose and lips.

"Can a bullet take me out?" he asked. "A silver bullet or a stake?"

"Bitch, please, of course it can," she retorted seriously. That would kill anyone. "You're only immortal if you're smart." She brushed her lips against his chest and gave him a playful bite.

They shared a laugh and kissed. One thing led to another, and soon they found themselves in the bath. Elizabeth moaned in rapture. He even felt like _him._ If she closed her eyes, she could pretend he had never left.

Tristan pulled her head back by her hair and leaned forward to bite, but nothing happened. "No fangs?" He found that kind of disappointing.

"We don't bite. We cut," Elizabeth gasped. "Harder. Harder." Her sensual moans echoed off the walls as they climbed higher and higher toward ecstasy.

"Never drink from the dead," she instructed him later, while applying makeup reminiscent of the silent film era to his face. "Avoid the diseased, the feeble, the polluted. Bad blood is like a... a bad flu or worse."

"Coffins?" he asked.

"I prefer blackout curtains and a Duxiana bed," she replied coyly. "The sun won't kill you, but it should be avoided. It will sap your vitality."

"Huh," Tristan said. He should probably keep that in mind.

Elizabeth finished his makeup and caressed his face. _"Bellissimo."_

"What?" Tristan asked with a small laugh and smile.

Elizabeth closed her eyes and looked away, withdrawing her hand. For a moment, she really had forgotten who she was with. No matter how much they looked alike, Tristan wasn't _him._ "Nothing, you just remind me so much of someone."

"You know what I can't wait for?" Tristan asked her. "To hunt Kendall Jenner. Bitch blew me off once at Coachella. Can I kill her?"

"The only thing that can undo you now is your own recklessness," she told him, giving him a light shove. "Just don't get caught." She leaned back and pressed her gold stiletto-clad foot to his chest when he started to sit up. "And don't fall in love. That's the part you save for me." She pulled him close and sat in his lap. "Forever."

A few more orgasms and an outfit change later, Tristan asked her another question while they were lying on her bed together. "How old are you?"

"I was born in 1904," Elizabeth replied.

He laughed in amazement. "Who turned you?"

"One who is even more beautiful than you," she answered, reaching up to caress his face. She turned her head away. "But he's long gone now." She swallowed the lump that formed in her throat at the memory of how he had left her. "So you'll have to do." She rolled over and kissed him.

Tristan chuckled and grinned at her, shifting position so he was on top of her. "Shit. So you lived through, like, the wars and the depression, and... Clinton and everything. What was your favorite time?"

Elizabeth flipped them over. "Every decade has its decadence period. That's when I'm most alive." She stripped off her bra. "I loved the late 1970s the most."

She could still see it now. She and Peggy would hit a different disco club every night, and she would make the most glorious entrance onto the dance floor, riding a white horse, while her male friends held her Rapunzel-long hair up for her—like Lady Godiva draped in red rayon.

"I was the disco queen," she said. "I still am. The darkness was the light. I could walk amongst them with no fear, no judgment. We were all vampires then. Oh my God, the blood." How she yearned to go back. "I mourn it still. I think about everything that could have been, had they all lived, my friends. Andy, Keith. Robert." All of them had been lost to drugs or violence in one form or another. "All that... loss." She closed her eyes, wondering how Peggy had managed it. How many of her daughter's friends were still alive, while her own were dead. Elizabeth's only comfort was the knowledge that she, at least, would always be with her. She would always have her Peggy.

"Were those guys you killed?" Tristan asked, oblivious to her inner turmoil.

They heard his footsteps before they saw him.

Donovan stood in the bedroom's open doorway, seething with jealousy. "He won't last a week."

Tristan scowled and stood up on the bed to confront him, not caring that the only thing he had on was a pair of leopard-print briefs. "You want to say that to my face?"

"I just did," Donovan retorted coolly.

Elizabeth propped herself up and looked at him. It seemed the time had come to shatter the illusion. "Tristan, would you give us a minute?"

Tristan glanced at her. "Yeah, sure." He sniffed and hopped down off the bed. He grabbed the pink kimono robe Elizabeth gave him and walked off. He could always teach the asshole a lesson later.

Elizabeth watched him go and bit her lip as her gaze turned to Donovan. She lay back on the bed when he shut the doors behind Tristan.

Donovan laughed. "I can't believe you turned him," he said, turning to face her again.

Elizabeth rolled over and left the bed to put on her robe.

"He's a stupid trashy model," Donovan said, moving closer.

"And you were a pathetic addict dying on a filthy floor," she reminded him as she stalked past and opened the door. "I didn't want to hurt you. I still don't. There's no reason this has to end badly."

"End?" Donovan asked, following her out the room.

Elizabeth stopped at the bar cart to light a cigarette.

"Are you throwing me out?"

Elizabeth removed the cigarette from her mouth and poured a drink. She could hear the fear in his voice, smell the panic in his blood.

"I love you," he said forlornly.

She picked up the glass and turned to face him. She handed him the drink. He would need it.

"I love you."

Desperation. "And I love you," she told him, reaching up to caress his face one last time. "But you will learn—it isn't our precious virus that makes you." She watched him lean into her touch. "It isn't who you kill or who you screw."

He looked at her. Confusion.

"It's the heartbreaks. The bigger, the better," she concluded with a smile. "I know better than any of us." As did her daughter. Poor Peggy had inherited her terrible luck in love. They both longed for men they could never have. Their heartache bonded them together. "I'll let you pack your things." She turned away from him and took another drag on her cigarette before putting it out. _3... 2... 1..._

 _Smash!_ Donovan threw the glass at the floor with such violence, that Elizabeth still flinched even though she had been expecting it.

"You said," he seethed, grabbing her and spinning her around so he could sit her on the back of the sofa and wrap her legs around him, "when you brought me back from the brink of death, that it was the closest thing you ever had to a spiritual experience. You tell me..." He cradled her head in his hands. "You tell me you felt that when you made him."

"Honestly..." Elizabeth said, staring him straight in the eye, "it was... one of the most... erotic... moments... of my life." She moved her lips tantalizingly close to his, only to push him away.

Donovan gasped, staring at her with misty eyes.

There it was. The shock. The heartache. The misery. She relished in it. She made sure to keep eye contact with him right up until the moment she reached her bedroom door.

Peggy was about to stand up and leave the lounge to get ready for dinner, when John marched Iris over to the bar. Iris ordered two glasses of whiskey and pushed one in front of John. He smelled angry. Curious, Peggy decided to delay her departure to see what they were up to.

John declined the drink with a slight shake of his head.

"Is that your thing?" Iris asked. "You need to be talked into drinking?"

John responded by pushing the drink away and putting his handcuffs on the counter.

"Cut the crap, ask me what you really want to know," Iris told him.

"I want to know what's going on in this place," he replied.

 _Well,_ Peggy thought, _that could take all night._ She could see Liz was thinking along the same lines. The bartender had placed a hand over her chest and moved away to give them some space.

"Well, if you want to know what this place is about, you have to know about the man who built it—James Patrick March," Iris began. "He put every atom of evil in his being into building this hotel. March was a self-made man—oil, coal. But he was new money, shunned by the elites of East Coast society."

Peggy pulled out her cigarette case and lit one up. Personally, she thought the fortune earned purely through her father's entrepreneurial skills was much more impressive than one owned by a bunch of fat cats who never had to work for a living. Even she at least had the experience of waitressing in a soda shop to earn a bit of extra cash as a teenager.

"So he came west, to a land where pedigree meant little if you had a lot of dough," Iris continued. "Here he would build a monument to excess and opulence, where he could satisfy his own peculiar appetites." She went on to narrate what she thought happened. Some of her information had been garnered from overheard conversations; others came direct from the source.

" _Uh, Mr. March? Mr. March?!" Barker, one the hired workers called out, trying to get the millionaire's attention. "Uh, th-there's a problem!"_

" _I'll be right down!" James shouted back from his perch on the scaffolding above._

 _It was Los Angeles, 1925._

"He was a design freak—Art Deco, self-taught," Iris explained. He tried to get Julia Morgan to come out and build a place for him, but she demanded that he pay his workers fair wages, so he told her to stuff it."

Peggy exhaled the smoke from her lungs. Yep, that sounded like her father, all right. He was product of his raising, having grown up in time when the idea of fair pay probably seemed like nothing more than a passing fad. Statutory minimum wages in this country were only officially introduced on a national level in 1938.

" _There's part of these plans that make no sense," Barker explained when James descended join him on the first floor. He led his boss over to a drafting table to show him the blueprints. "I mean, entire hallways with no rooms off of them. It looks like you want us to build, uh, some sort of secret passage system."_

 _James peered at the plans laid out before him. "Well, of course these make no sense. These aren't the right ones." He pushed the blueprint from the table. "You're working off and old draft. Come up to my office with me. I'll get you the new set."_

 _Barker sighed in relief. "Okay, good," the unsuspecting man chuckled, following James's lead to the elevator._

" _I envy you," James told him on the ride up. "My curse was making my fortune too early."_

 _Barker had no idea what he meant by that, but something in the other man's voice filled him with a slight sense of unease. Yet, despite any qualms he may have had, he followed his boss out of the elevator and down the hall to his office in room 64. James opened the door to let the unassuming worker in first, and shut it behind himself._

" _My point being that the appetites of the filthy rich are specific," James continued to explain as he strolled over to the large safe at the back of the room. "Altered from that of the common man. Do you mind?" he asked, handing his cane to the other man for a moment so he could unlock it. "I feed some of that hunger with this building." The tumblers clicked into place, and he pulled the lever to open the door. "My art." He took his can back and entered the walk-in safe. "But sometimes, if I really want that good, full feeling..." He paused, waiting until Barker was inside the safe, standing right behind him. Without warning, James drew the handle of his cane and stabbed him in the neck with the concealed blade attached to it. He watched with satisfaction as the nosy man groaned and moaned in pain, sinking to floor. With the blood gushing out of his wound like a geyser, it only took seconds for him to loose consciousness. James sighed, enjoying the momentary feeling of exhilaration that only killing could bring._

"He wasn't just building the finest hotel Los Angeles had ever seen."

 _James grunted from the effort of dragging and lifting Barker's body to dump it down the death chute._

"It was a perfectly designed torture chamber. An engineered alibi. Secret chutes and rooms to hide and dispose of the bodies."

 _Barker's body slid down the chute into the endless darkness that awaited it at the bottom._

"Hallways with no exits."

 _A woman screamed, running frantically through the hall, desperate to find a way out or a door that was actually real._

"Walls were lined with asbestos so they could mute the screams."

 _The woman turned and saw James stalking towards her from around the corner. She screamed and cowered, and he savored every moment of it._

"People walked in, just vanished. 'No body, no crime' he would say."

Peggy smiled wryly and nodded in agreement. Those where the exact words her father used when he began teaching her how to get away with murder after her mother turned her. She was certain he had never been more proud of her than when she made that first kill.

 _James whistled a jaunty tune while he worked on laying some new bricks to seal his latest victim inside a wall._

" _No, no," she sobbed. "I don't like small spaces. Please. Help!" she cried louder, hoping someone might hear._

 _James sighed and set the trowel down, so he could remove one of his gloves, and pulled a monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket._

" _Help! Help! No. Please, no," she whimpered as he stuffed it in her mouth to silence her screams. Elizabeth was only weeks away from giving birth, and he couldn't have anything upsetting her._

"He had a wife."

" _No," Elizabeth said when she entered the room, reaching through the opening in the wall to remove his handkerchief._

"They say he forced her to watch the torture."

Peggy laughed through her nose at that.

" _I like it," she told James._

 _He gasped as she brushed past him on her way out. "Oh," he moaned longingly. If only she weren't in such a delicate condition. He smiled and returned to his work, whistling the rest of the tune he had stuck in his head._

"No one knows how many died. Rumor has it he averaged three a week."

 _More like five or six, nowadays,_ Peggy thought.

"A lot more if he went on a bender."

 _Another woman screamed in agony as James forced himself on her, simultaneously slicing her abdomen with the blades his hands, which he swung with every thrust, until he finally reached his climax and came just as she went. He groaned with satisfaction and removed the part of his headgear that guarded his face, panting from all the exertion. He pulled up his pants and collapsed back onto the table beside the woman's body, which was still bound to it with ropes._

Peggy nearly choked on her cigarette. That particular episode was news to her. She knew her father liked to torture people, but the thought of him doing _that_ made her a little queasy. However, even this couldn't diminish her feelings for him. She still loved him, that twisted bastard. It made her wonder if she had inherited his warped brain chemistry.

 _He groaned when he looked up and saw the light hanging above him. "Miss Evers!"_

 _She came to answer his call immediately. "Yes, Mr. March? Do you require fresh linens?"_

" _Yes," he replied. "But more importantly, remind me to switch out this God-awful Secessionist light fixture. Makes this place look like a damn zoo." His eyes darted side to side as he remembered something important. Elizabeth and the baby were due to return from the hospital that day. He needed to get ready. James picked himself up with a grunt and hopped off the table. "Excuse my language," he told Miss Evers with a wink as he passed her on his way out._

 _Miss Evers chuckled and smiled broadly, enjoying the sight of his broad, bare back._

"His loyal minion. Miss Evers, the laundress."

 _Miss Evers scrubbed furiously to remove the bloody and other various body fluids from the sheets for Mr. March, while he went to meet his wife and the new baby._

"She said she could get a stain out of anything for Mr. March using a secret ingredient—love."

 _Miss Evers examined the cleaned sheets and smiled._

Peggy inhaled a deep puff from her cigarette and exhaled slowly. She sympathized with poor Miss Evers. She was another victim of unrequited love toward her father.

 _James was disposing of the remaining members of the hotel's construction crew. He couldn't very well allow anyone who knew the locations of his secret passages and hiding spaces to leave. He knew they would never remain a secret if he did. Most of the men begged for their lives. But the one he saved for last refused to do anything but pray. James leaned down, lowering himself to the kneeling man's level. "My father was a true believer," he told him. "Ate the little cracker and drank the wine every Sunday." James inhaled sharply at the memory of the malicious bastard. "And he was the meanest son of a bitch you've ever seen. Kill a cat for purring too loud." He shook his head and clicked his tongue. "You want me to tell you the worst thing in this world? Religion." The other man shuddered. "That and regulations."_

Peggy covered her mouth with her hand. She always knew being a good father was important to him, and had often wondered why he would refuse to talk about his own parents or tell her so little of his own childhood. Now she she thought understood.

 _"God is in my heart so I know there is always hope," the religious man said stubbornly._

 _James raised his eyebrows in disbelief and quickly dragged the man over to kneel in front of the death chute and stare down into the abysmal darkness beyond. "You think there is hope now?" he whispered in the man's ear. "You think God is going to protect you from the head of this hammer? Or the six floors you're about to fall?"_

 _"As long as there is a God, men like you can kill thousands—" the man said._

 _James took a step back, moving to position himself behind him._

 _"—_ _millions, but you will never find peace," his soon-to-be victim concluded, glancing at him over his shoulder._

 _A twisted smile snaked its way across James's face. That was quite the speech. And it would certainly explain why even the high of taking a life never seemed to last him as long as he would like. His little daughter Peggy had become a bright spot in his dark life, but he could never completely shake the terrible feeling of being somehow incomplete. He laughed. "Well then, I guess I'm just going to have to kill God," he decided._

 _The religious man turned his head around to face forward again, eyes wide with horror._

 _"That is my message to the world," James declared. He noticed the man had begun to mumble prayers under his breath again. So he raised the hammer and silenced the impertinent fool forever. James wasted no time in hoisting his dead body into the chute. Good Riddance!_

 _Miss Evers came into the room and saw the blood splatters. "I'll fetch you a clean shirt."_

 _James turned around to face her. He looked down, and then his head snapped up again with a wild look in his eyes as he shook his finger and shouted, "And I want every Bible from every bed stand in this entire hotel!"_

 _The corpses of six mutilated men lay sprawled out in the dirt path of a vineyard, their bodies framed by numerous bibles, piled up at one end. Their hands had been cut off, and their chests carved with Roman numerals._

 _"What in the hell is this mess?" asked the detective on the scene._

 _"No I.D.'s," a uniformed cop informed him._

 _"Not right for someone to pull this shit on a Sunday," the detective said, grimacing in disgust, as he kneeled down to collect something that stood out. He picked up a white handkerchief embroidered with the initials J.P.M._

 _"He was slo_ ppy with his wet work out in the world."

 _The detective led a brigade of armed cops into The Cortez._

"They say somebody turned him in. No one knows who, but I'm betting on the wife."

Peggy scoffed at that. She knew her mother didn't return her father's affections, but if the Countess wanted someone dead, she would at least have the courtesy to kill them herself. Her mother would never have left it up to the cops.

 _James poured a bottle of acid over the corpse of one of his hotel victims to dissolve it in a metal tub._

"With him gone, she got everything. All those millions."

 _James finished pouring out the acid. There was a series of rapid knocks on his office door before Miss Evers let herself in. She shut the door behind her._

" _I'm sorry to disturb you, sir," she said nervously. "I have some very bad news. The police are here."_

 _The jig was up. James lowered his head and considered his options. He set the bottle of acid down and headed for the safe. He unlocked it, removed his mask, and stepped over the corpse of the woman he had yet to get to, sighing heavily. He brushed his gloved hand over Peggy's bronzed baby shoes. He could never allow himself to be taken alive. But daddy would see her again, soon. He selected a gun from the shelf below. Miss Evers was already collecting the sheets when he rejoined her in the main room and drew the blade from his cane. She stood and waited for him while he walked over to stand before her. "Oh, Miss Evers," he sighed. "You have always been the only one I can count on. You are a pillar. And so I give you the honors." He presented the blade and the gun. "What order shall we die in?"_

 _"Oh, Mr. March," she gasped. "Oh, I really don't know. I mean, part of me wishes you would go first so I could launder the sheets. There's no time for that, is there?"_

 _There were several distinctly formal knocks on the door._

 _"No. It seems not," James replied. That was a policeman's knock if ever he heard one._

 _"I will go first," Miss Evers decided._

Peggy put out her cigarette and left the lounge. She had only been a toddler at the time, but she knew this next part of the story well. She didn't need to hear it again.

"What is keeping Peggy?" James wondered. It was unlike her to be late. The cocktail of blood and scotch he mixed for her would lose its flavor. "Don't tell me she went out with her mother again?"

"Not that I know of, sir," Miss Evers replied with a frown, also perplexed. Peggy never kept him waiting without good reason.

There were a couple of light knocks on the door that James immediately recognized. His mood brightened instantly. "Ah! There she is," he said, sweeping over to let her in himself. He only had a moment to admire her elegantly understated attire for the evening—a long, black short-sleeved trumpet-shaped dress speckled with dots of small red sequins that shimmered subtly in the dim light from the new Christian Dior Fall 2015 Couture collection and a pair of classic diamond and ruby stud earrings—when she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. "What is it, darling?" he asked with frown, wrapping his arms around her in a protective embrace. She was clearly upset, and he wanted to know why. He would skin the person responsible alive.

"It's nothing," she said, clutching the back of his jacket. "I just wanted to remind you how much I love you."

James felt as if his daughter had reached right into his chest and given his heart a warm static electric pop. She was the only one who could have this affect on him. He squeezed her close for a moment before moving her back a couple steps so he could see her face. "Now, why don't you tell me what is really bothering you?"

Her eyes briefly flitted to rest on his cravat, then returned to the floor. She bit her lip. "They were talking about it in the bar, the day you were caught." She felt his grip tighten on her arms.

"Who?" he asked with a calm that barely concealed the storm within. Everyone who valued their lives knew he didn't like them dredging up those painful memories for Peggy. He still remembered how much she had cried that day, even after he reappeared before her. The way she wailed and sobbed for him over and over again until her voice went raw, and she exhausted herself to the point of passing out in his arms. He still hadn't fully forgiven Elizabeth for not keeping a better grip on her. She should never have been allowed to see him like that.

"Iris. But only because John asked her about the hotel's history under threat of arrest," she explained quickly. "I don't think she realized I was still in the lounge, so don't punish her."

James frowned. He still didn't approve. It was true he wanted John to understand himself and The Cortez, but not at his daughter's expense.

"I'm alright, Daddy, really," she reassured him when she saw his reluctance to drop it. "I just don't like the idea of you being hurt."

James cupped her face in his hands. "And I don't like the idea of you being hurt, either." He let go of her to remove his cravat. It slipped away to reveal a perfectly normal, completely unwounded neck. "Look carefully, Peggy. Does this seem painful to you? I stopped hurting a long time ago."

She took him by surprise when she raised herself up on the tips of her toes to kiss the spot on his neck where the wound should have been.

"I know," she said, giving him another hug. She knew he would always hide it away whenever he was with her.

"Yes, well," James said thickly, struggling with an emotion he didn't quite recognize, pausing for a second to clear his throat, "If you truly are feeling better, then we should have our dinner before it gets cold. Miss Evers?"

Miss Evers, who had yet to completely recover from the shock of Peggy's bold action, didn't respond with her usual speed. "What? Oh, yes, Mr. March," she said, quickly getting ahold of herself when she realized she was needed. "Tonight the chef has prepared a mushroom and spinach lasagna, a tricolore salad with parmesan, and an olive oil cake with vanilla and oranges."

Peggy blushed sheepishly when her stomach growled.

James chuckled. "I suppose you _are_ feeling better, after all."

"It isn't funny, Daddy," she pouted, turning even redder when he began to pet her hair. He always managed to make her feel like a little kid again.

"No, of course not," he agreed with an affectionate smile. No matter how much time passed, she would always be his little daisy.


	3. Daddy

**Chapter 3: Daddy**

* * *

Peggy rode the elevator up to her father's floor. The new book she ordered on Amazon, _Handbook of Mesoamerican Mythology,_ had arrived, and she wanted to share it with him. She thought he might find it interesting. The stories were unusual and had no shortage of gory details. However, when she entered his room, she found it empty. His record of _Body and Soul_ was playing, but neither he nor Miss Evers appeared to be in, because it had reverted to its true state as a dusty old room instead of the usual glamor it exuded while her father was there to exert his influence over it. She decided to sit and finish reading her book while she waited. She didn't get very far before someone unexpected appeared. She looked up in surprise when the rooster from the fashion show, Tristan Duffy, entered the room. Her eyes widened slightly when the scent of his blood hit her nose over the dust and must of the room. The quality of his blood had changed, his complexion was clearer, and his previously cocky bravado seemed to have been replaced with true confidence. She had seen this enough times before to guess what had happened. Her mother had made a new lover.

He appeared equally surprised to see her. "Who are you?" he asked in a rather rude tone.

"I could ask you the same question," she replied calmly from the loveseat. She already knew the answer to that question, though. "Was it the Countess who turned you?"

"Countess?" Tristan asked, furrowing his brow in confusion.

"Elizabeth," she amended. He was so new, he must not have heard her nickname yet.

"Yeah. You know her?" he asked, moving further into the room.

"She's my mother," Peggy replied.

Tristan paused. "She infected you, too?" How many more of them were there?

"That, and she gave birth to me. I'm much older than I look. I'm probably from the same generation as your grandparents," Peggy explained.

"Damn," he said, looking her up and down. He smirked. "You look good for your age." He could definitely see the family resemblance. This chick was almost as hot as her mother.

"Is there any particular reason why you're here?" she asked, deciding they had exchanged enough small talk.

"Oh, right. I came here looking for someone I met the other day," he explained, sounding as if he had almost forgotten his purpose. "You haven't seen a dude running around in, like, twenties clothing have you?"

"Not today," she replied. "But you're definitely in the right place."

Tristan smirked again and started pacing the room, glancing around in the hope the dude might appear. "I got to admit, he freaked me out before. I didn't understand him, but... I get it now."

Peggy smiled wryly. Again, she could guess what had happened.

"I know everything about him now," Tristan continued, moving into the bedroom. "I'm a fan. His name is James Patrick March, right?"

"That's right," Peggy confirmed. She wondered if her mother had told him or if he figured it out on his own.

"And he was born October 30th, 1895. He's a Scorpio, which explains a lot."

Peggy laughed through her nose at the amusing comment and smiled as she shifted to lean on the armrest to rest her head on her hand.

"He's the greatest serial killer who's ever lived," Tristan concluded, flopping backward onto the bed.

James chose that moment to appear, standing at the foot of the bed so he loomed over the young man. The smoke from his pipe floated around his head in a haze, adding to the haunting atmosphere. "How do you know all this?"

Tristan sat up and grinned. "I Googled you."

"That sounds obscene," James said, the corners of his mouth curling in amusement.

Peggy was amused as well, by her father's reaction. "It's an electronic search engine," she explained. "People use it to search the internet for information."

"Ah, yes," James said, recognizing some familiar terms from his daughter's previous attempts to educate him on the subject of modern technology. "The World Wide Web you're so fond of, correct?"

"Correct," Peggy agreed with a smile.

"You were right, man," Tristan told James, standing up.

James glanced back at him with an expression that suggested he required more information.

"Killing is awesome," Tristan stated with a devious grin.

"First blood?" Peggy asked. She still remembered how amazing hers tasted.

The model's grin widened and his eyes gleamed with excitement at the memory of his first kill. "Yeah. I totally shanked this lumberjack in the neck. It was freaking amazing. High-five!" he said, holding his hand up to her father, waiting for him to reciprocate.

James's eyes darted from the exuberant young man's hand to his expectant face. No. "Good," he told him, ignoring the waiting hand. "You've found you calling." He knew perfectly well what a high-five was, and he would occasionally humor Peggy, but that was where he drew the line. "Then you can appreciated what I've built here," he continued, strolling across the room. "Secret rooms, hinged walls, acid pits, asphyxiation chambers."

Peggy smiled while she watched them. The subject matter was terrible, but she enjoyed seeing her father's face light up like a little kid bragging about his favorite toys.

"Are you familiar with my Black Closet?" he asked the young man, approaching the ornately carved wooden panel on the far wall. He opened it, and a dark grin crept across his face as he recalled the hopeless desperation, the fear in his victims' eyes, and the sound of their pained cries as he pushed them through the hinged panel to impale them on the large spike protruding out the black wall at the back. "Yes," he mused, feeling very pleased with himself. He smoked his pipe, closed the closet, and walked back to stand near his daughter on the loveseat. The young man followed him. "There are places in my murder palace that have sat in cold neglect for far too long," he said, turning to face him. "You can put them to good use, old boy."

"I'm listening," Tristan said.

"Good," James said, sitting down beside Peggy. He crossed his legs and leaned back to rest his arm over the back of the loveseat, behind her head, while the young man settled himself into the armchair nearest to him. "Now..."

"My God, look at this," a female voice with a British accent exclaimed loud enough for them to hear her in the hall.

James, Peggy, and Tristan immediately turned their heads toward the open door. They could sense trouble coming their way.

"The whole floor needs to be torn out. This space is perfect for my atelier. It's gonna be sensational."

Peggy frowned at the suggestion, recognizing the owner of the second voice as Will Drake. She could hear their footsteps drawing closer and smelled the blood of three people entering the room.

"And wait until you see this room," Will said as he walked into view, leading a boy, who Peggy assumed was his son, and a woman, whose style of dress screamed 'fashion diva.' His smile fell the instant he saw Tristan. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"Reading," Peggy replied, raising her book a little for him to see. Her father had dropped out of sight again.

"No, you're alright," Will told her. It was strange to find her there, but she wasn't the one who had tried to ruin his show. "I'm talking about you," he told Tristan with a pointed look in his direction.

"Visiting a friend," Tristan replied carelessly.

"I was told that nobody lives on this floor," Will said with his hands on his hips, approaching them. "Are you a squatter?" he asked Peggy, assuming she was the friend Tristan was talking about.

"No, my room is on a different floor," she answered, unfazed. "It should be listed on the official register under my name, if you'd like to check."

"Tristan, you clean up pretty well," the woman with Will complimented the model. "I barely recognized you."

Tristan smiled at her. "Thank you, Claudia."

Claudia returned his smile and shifted her attention to Peggy, who she remembered from the deep impression her exquisite vintage ensemble had made on her the other day when Will pointed her out to him from across the aisle. "Big Schiaparelli fan?" she asked, admiring the way she pulled off the black short-sleeved pantsuit with a mandarin color and gold embroidery over a sheer shimmery black top with long sleeves and gold flats, with her hair twisted in a classic chignon and Yoko London earrings of white, cream, and gold pearls with diamonds in her ears. "I must say, I just love your outfit."

"Ever since Elsa. Thank you," Peggy replied pleasantly.

"Claudia Banks," the woman introduced herself, offering Peggy her hand.

She accepted. "Peggy March."

While the two women were talking, Will moved closer to Tristan and leaned over to examine his face. "What happened to your cut?"

Tristan slapped his hand away when he started stroking the area of his cheek where the wound used to be. "Get your paws off. I'm not here to be a deposit in your spank bank."

Claudia glanced away from Peggy to watch the drama.

Lachlan laughed. "Owned, Dad."

Will turned his attention from his son back to Tristan. He stood up and looked down at the model. "Get out. I'll call the cops if I see you in my hotel again."

Peggy didn't know what the source of the tension between them was, but that seemed a bit excessive.

Will Drake left while he still had the last word, making sure his son cam with.

"Models," Claudia scoffed, following them out. "See you around, Miss March."

The second they were gone James reappeared with Miss Evers at his side. Peggy's pleasant façade fell when she saw how disturbed he was by what he had overheard.

"Tear this floor out?" the maid questioned, clutching a bundle of sheets in her arms. "Where will I launder the linens?"

"He cannot be allowed to touch a single room," James stated grimly.

"Don't worry, dude," Tristan said, standing up. He smirked. "I got this." He left the room without clarifying exactly how he intended to fix the problem, but Peggy had feeling she knew.

She stood up and approached her father, holding his hand. "Don't worry, Daddy. I won't let anything happen to you."

James looked at her, his brow furrowed. "Peggy," he said, resting his other hand on her arm. "I appreciate the sentiment, but leave this to your mother and her new lover. I don't want you involved in this, do you understand?" If that man, Will Drake, was truly as famous as she said, then his disappearance had the potential to become a high-profile crime. He couldn't risk the possibility of the police coming to take her away.

Peggy frowned, hurt knowing that he wouldn't rely on her, that he would always choose her mother over her every time. "I want to help," she insisted.

"You can help by staying out of it. Don't get involved, Peggy," James ordered sternly.

Peggy clenched her fists and strode out of the room with her head straight, refusing to look at him. She didn't want to let him see how much he hurt her.

James sighed heavily. "Miss Evers?"

"Yes, Mr. March?" she asked.

"Keep an eye on her, will you?"

"Of course, Mr. March." She promptly disappeared to carry out his orders.

James sat down in his armchair and ran his hands over his face. He reminded himself that he needed to be careful with Peggy. It was always most dangerous when she tried to pretend nothing was wrong. The harder she tried, the worse it would be. Despite her best efforts, he knew she was upset with him, angry even. He needed to make sure she wouldn't do anything rash. He frowned and furrowed his brow deeply as he recalled the last time she made him worry like this.

 _Los Angeles, 1944_

 _James held the head of the man in room 48 underwater, drowning him in the tub. He had alternated between shoving his head below the water and pulling it back up again—pushing him to the edge of death, giving him a flicker of hope that it was over, and then snatching it away. Ordinarily he would have enjoyed this, but he found no joy in his work today. Peggy had been growing increasingly distant from him lately, choosing to spend more time with her mother instead. It all started with the makeup._

" _I don't want you wearing that. You're too young," he had told her. She was only in her teens. In his day, girls had waited until they were older before they started painting their faces._

" _But, Daddy, everyone's wearing it," she argued._

" _Who is 'everyone'?" he demanded. He wanted to know what miscreants were being such a bad influence on her._

" _Everyone at school."_

 _She claimed it was normal and had become the fashion among her generation. She even showed him pictures from her school's events to prove her point. He still disapproved. So, naturally, his wife not only approved, she gave her pointers. Then Peggy started staying out later, spending more time with her friends. She insisted on working a part-time job, even though she could have come to him for anything she needed. Their dinners together were canceled so she could go on outings with her mother. In fact, that was where she was that very moment—out, with Elizabeth. He had gone three full weeks without seeing her face. They used to be inseparable. His little girl was slipping away from him, and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. The harder he pushed, the more she pulled away._

Peggy lay curled up on the couch in her room, nursing a glass of scotch. Her mind was also on the past.

 _Her feelings for her father had begun to grow in an alarming direction ever since she was fifteen, and by the age of seventeen, they had become such a burden that they were almost unbearable. She tried distancing herself from him, hoping that her feelings would weaken if they spent less time together, but it only seemed to make things worse. Her relationship with him became strained. She could rely on her mother to find excuses for her, because she had been a teenage girl herself once, but even she had begun to question her strange behavior. She didn't want her mother to know what was going on in her head, and she couldn't talk to her friends about it. She felt so ashamed and alone, until she met Jimmy._

 _He came in during her shift at the soda shop she was waitressing at. The moment she saw his face, she swore she stopped breathing. He was the spitting image of her father. He was around her age, his hair was lighter, a dirty blonde, his skin was tanned from being out in the sun, and he was, of course, dressed like a normal teenager. But everything else about him was exactly the same, including his eyes. It took her five whole minutes to recover from the shock, during which, he had been trying to get her attention so he could order. Instead of being upset, he gave her a smile that made her chest feel tight and her stomach flutter. He was very friendly, and it turned out he was a big flirt. It became a routine for him to come in during her shift._

 _She didn't give the leather mittens on his hands a second thought until he kept them on to eat a sandwich. He panicked when she offered to wash them for him when they got covered in mayo. She was confused and asked him if he had some kind of phobia. He laughed nervously and handed her a ticket, saying she'd find out if she used it. She was surprised to discover that it was for a freak show. Curious, she took Jimmy's advice and went. A bearded lady came out to give an introduction to the show. A German lady who called herself 'Fraulein Elsa' headlined with a song. There were midgets. A woman of indeterminate age with a disproportionate head, big ears, and an even bigger smile. A small man in a feathery costume, known as a geek, who bit the heads off of chickens. And a man they called 'the painted seal', who had malformed arms and tattoos all over, except for his face. But the act that made her stomach flip was when a handsome teenage boy with curly dirty blonde hair and dark brown eyes came out and started juggling with two deformed hands. It was a shock, but when she considered everything she had witnessed over the years, she decided she had seen worse. And even if his hands were different than what she expected, he was still the same Jimmy who had managed to make her laugh when no one else could._

 _She looked for him after the show, and he seemed ready to be rejected when she found him. She held his bare hand instead. He had been a good friend to her, and she wanted to be a good friend back._

 _"Are you sure you're okay being friends with someone like me?" he asked._

 _"Are you okay with being friends with the daughter of a serial killer?" she retorted._

 _It was Jimmy's turn to be shocked. He said he had a hard time believing it, because she looked so normal. But he accepted her. They started seeing more of each other. He even taught her how to ride his motorcycle. Eventually, she felt safe enough to confide in him what had been eating away at her for the past couple of years. She fudged a few details, omitting the fact that it was her dead father she was in love with, leading him to believe the object of her forbidden affections was simply a married man—which wasn't entirely untrue, since her father was married to her mother. Jimmy felt sorry for her and wanted to help her, but he seemed stumped. Then he came up with the idea that finding a new love might help her forget the old one. He volunteered himself for the job._

 _He started taking her on dates. He was her first boyfriend. Her first kiss. Her first man. She liked Jimmy, and she enjoyed being with him, but no matter how sweet and kind and funny he was, she could only bring herself to love him as a friend. He couldn't replace her father—no matter how much they looked alike. In a very desperate move, she offered herself up to her friend on a silver platter. She really wanted to love Jimmy. It would have made life so much easier, and she wouldn't have to hurt him, because she could tell he was getting serious about her. He had even started talking about quitting the carnival and going away somewhere together. She thought, maybe, if she could experience something more intense, she might be able to form a tighter bond with him, to feel something closer to the love they both deserved._

James remembered that day all too well.

 _He had been sitting in the lounge, having a drink, when he heard his daughter's voice in the lobby bellow. He stood up and moved to railing to greet her, but whatever he had been about to say died in his throat when he saw the way she and that boy clung to each other as they made a beeline for the elevator. His grip on the railing tightened, and his jaw tensed. It was a surprise that came completely out of the blue. As soon as she was old enough to start forming an interest in boys, he had made certain to impress upon her how dangerous they could be. He made her promise to bring any potential lovers back to the hotel, where she would be safe and protected. He knew all too well what horrors could befall an unsuspecting young woman once she was lured behind a locked door on her own. He shuddered to think any of them might happen to her. But she had never shown any particular interest in boys, never did anything to indicate she might have special feelings or any kind of attraction for one specific person. And then she waltzed in with that boy. He didn't like the look of him._

 _James followed them into his daughter's room. He sat in a chair off to the side to observe them. He had to make sure the boy wasn't going to do anything to hurt her. He wasn't prepared for what came next. The boy, she called him "Jimmy", asked if she was sure. Sure of what? Peggy assured him that she was, and he kissed her. The boy kissed his little girl. It was not a chaste kiss. His grip tightened on his cane when the boy laid her on the bed put his hands up her skirt. Those hands. James had never seen anything like them before, and he certainly didn't want them touching his daughter—but she did. She let the boy touch her wherever he wanted. She had let him remove her blouse and dropped her knickers to the floor. Thankfully, she kept her bra and skirt on. Then she let him use those deformed hands to put her on that bed, and let them slide in between her legs. James nearly revealed himself to beat the boy when he heard that first whimper of pain escape his daughter's lips. But the boy stopped, anxious not to hurt her. She kissed him again and told him to keep going. James returned to his seat. He watched their progress closely. He did feel a small sense of relief when the boy dropped his pants—at least that part of him was normal—but he often found himself correcting the boy in his head. His daughter's young lover was obviously inexperienced. His movements were clumsy. Peggy had her eyes squeezed shut, clearly not enjoying the experience as much as she should have. He could have done a much better job at pleasing her, James thought. He had allowed it because this was an important milestone in a young girl's life, and Peggy had wanted it. But if this is how it was going to be, then he should have just done it himself. His eyes widened, appalled at himself, and quickly banished the thought. He had made his decision long ago. No matter what anyone else might say, he was the one who raised her. That was enough for him. Peggy belonged to him. She was HIS daughter._

 _"James."_

 _He froze. Hearing his name escape his daughter's lips in that soft, breathy moan sent shivers up his spine. For a moment, he thought he had been discovered._

 _"You know I prefer Jimmy, baby," the boy corrected her._

 _Of course, James thought, quickly realizing his mistake. "Jimmy" was a nickname for "James." He had often been called that as a boy himself. He realized he was gripping his cane tight enough to impress the engravings on it into his skin and loosened his grip. Until he saw the tears._

Peggy sighed heavily and knocked back the rest of her glass's contents at the memory of how stupid she had been.

 _She had her eyes closed, the last image in her mind was Jimmy's eyes, the same dark eyes as her father's. She couldn't help but wonder what it would be like with him. What should she call him? His named left her mouth before she could stop herself. She was mortified. But she had never mentioned any names when she told Jimmy about her forbidden love, and he had thankfully assumed she was talking to him. In that moment Peggy really hated herself. What was she doing? Jimmy was her friend. She loved him. She didn't want to hurt him, but that's exactly what she was doing now. How much pain it would cause him if he knew she was thinking of someone else, that she had used him as a substitute? She clung tighter to him. "I'm sorry," she gasped with tears in her eyes. "I love you, Jimmy."_

 _James frowned and furrowed his brow, perplexed. Why was she crying? Was it because she was happy? So happy, she had to shed paradoxical tears to express it? She didn't sound happy. If anything, she sounded like she was in pain. But that wasn't the case if the moans of pleasure he heard from her and the boy as they kicked the beam together were anything to go by. He was glad it was over. He didn't know how much more he could have withstood. The whole encounter had been odd and awkward for everyone in the room except the boy, who seemed to be enjoying himself far too much to pay attention to what his daughter was feeling. His dislike for the boy only grew._

 _James had been on the edge of his seat the whole time, but now that the ordeal was over, he felt he could relax. Peggy seemed to feel that way, too, because she fell asleep from exhaustion. He didn't like the boy, but seeing the tender way he looked her sleeping face and caressed her hair, he thought he might be able to leave them alone together for a moment. Unfortunately, while he was debating this, he heard words that would have stopped his heart cold had he still been alive._

 _"Don't worry, Peggy," the boy told her in a soft voice that was barely above a whisper. "I'm gonna take you far away from here. Somewhere we can be happy."_

 _A fear unlike any he had ever felt before in his entire life pierced James to the core. Did Peggy intend to leave him? Would she really run away with this boy? He wanted to dismiss it as a flight of fancy, a misassumption on the boy's part. But then he remembered how distant his daughter had become. Was this what she intended all along? James felt his heart harden. NO. He may have allowed the boy to have her for the night, but taking her away from him—that would not be tolerated. This boy was a problem, one that needed to be dealt with swiftly. But how? James considered his options carefully. If he killed the boy now, then he would either be out of their lives forever, or reduced to a spirit who would no longer be able to leave the hotel. The boy would be trapped there, like him._

 _But there was a risk Peggy might leave anyway. There was also a chance she could come to hate him if she found out he was the one responsible for the boy's death. He couldn't have that either. But if she thought the boy abandoned her... Yes. James decided that was the only way. It had worked for her mother. It should work for her._

" _Oh, damn," the boy suddenly cursed when he saw the time. "I'm gonna be late for the show!"_

 _James watched while the boy kissed his sleeping daughter goodbye, scrambled to redress and collect his belongings, and scrawled out a hurried note for his daughter on the notepad she kept next to her phone before dashing out the door. The door slammed shut behind him. The loud noise woke Peggy, who looked around in confusion when she saw the other half of her bed empty. He wanted to break the boy's back with his cane when he saw the pained expression on her face, and the way she curled up on her bed to cry. He didn't enjoy seeing Peggy hurt. He wanted to comfort her, but he couldn't let her know he had been watching. He knew she wouldn't appreciate that, and he knew his daughter wasn't stupid. It would put him at the top of her suspect list when the boy went missing. He stood up and crossed the room to see what kind of message the boy left her, and found that its contents would work to his advantage. After making his excuse for leaving, the boy wrote that his freak show would be departing soon, and he was he was still waiting for her to respond to his proposal to leave together. The boy would return the next day and meet her at the hotel to hear her answer._

 _The boy would never get the chance. James located him and cut off his escape before he could exit the hotel. He vented his rage on the boy, giving him a good beating. He introduced himself as Peggy's father. He could tell by the mix of shock, confusion, and fear in the boy's eyes that she had told him all about his chosen vocation and the fate that befell him when the police finally caught on. In case there was any doubt in the boy's mind, he removed his cravat and showed him the wound that had killed him. He then took a gamble that Peggy had neglected to mention that he couldn't leave the hotel and promised the boy that if he dared to come near his daughter again, then he would hunt him down like the dog he was and kill him and anyone he ever cared about. There would be no second chances. Then he let the terrified boy run for his life._

 _The gamble paid off. The next day, James watched from the lounge above while Peggy waited for the boy to come into the lobby. He could tell she was nervous, clutching the note he had left for her in her hands. Morning turned to noon, then noon to night. The boy never came._

Peggy poured herself another drink. She remembered waiting there all by herself. She had decided not to go with him, and she was dreading having to tell him. But she felt the longer they were together, the more she would hurt him. It would be better for him to end it now, so he could find someone who could truly love him the way he deserved. She had mixed feelings of disappointment and relief when he didn't show, then concern when she considered that something might have happened to him. She went to the location of the freak show the next day to check on him, only to find that it had reverted to being an empty lot, and she learned from its owner that Jimmy and the others had pulled up stakes early and left that morning. She didn't even get a chance to say goodbye. She remembered going home and asking the bartender to pour her a drink, even though it was only a couple of weeks before her 18th birthday. That was when her father found her.

" _What is it, darling?" he asked after giving her moment to recover from her first taste of scotch. He had taken her to his room and poured her a drink from his own stash. "You know you can tell me anything. What is that's upset you so?"_

 _She bit her lip in an attempt to keep from crying, but failed. She spilled the beans about Jimmy._

 _"There, there," her father said, pulling her close. He kissed her forehead and stroked her hair while he held her, letting her stain his suit with tears and a runny nose. "It isn't your fault, sweetheart. That's just how boys are. The only man a girl can count on is her father."_

It took her a long time to get over that. A senseless feeling of abandonment was piled on top of the already crushing feeling she had for her father. The next three years were hellish.

James needed a drink when he remembered what came next. For a while, his plan seemed to have worked. Peggy stayed. She stopped pulling away from his attempts to get close, and she stopped staying out late. Over the next three years, she brought a few boys home, but they never made it past the lounge. He thought the danger was over. He was wrong.

 _Peggy's turmoil reached a crescendo after she turned twenty-one. Her mother started trying to get her interested in marriage. She didn't understand why she had suddenly become so pushy about it, but one day her mother spelled it out for her._

" _Here," her mother said, pushing her plate in front of her when they got into an argument about it when they went out for lunch together. "I'm not going to finish this steak. Would you like these leftovers, too?"_

 _Peggy was confused. "What are you talking about?" What other leftovers?_

 _Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at her. "You can't have James, Peggy," she said, making her blood run cold._

 _Peggy swallowed the lump in her throat and opened her mouth to speak._

" _Don't bother denying it," he mother cut her off. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice? I can smell your desire every time he walks into the room." She reached across the table to hold her daughter's hand, and her expression softened. "I can also smell your pain. You can't have him, because he's your father."_

 _Peggy bit her lip and managed not to fall apart in public. "How long have you known?"_

 _"Since the beginning," her mother replied sadly. "I thought, with time, you might grow out of it. But it's become clear that isn't going to happen. Staying with him will only cause you more suffering. Men break things all the time, and they don't even know they're doing it."_

 _Peggy knew her mother was right. She arranged for them to go to Paris together to give her a chance to get some space by convincing her father that it was a right of passage for a young woman, and that it would be a good cultural experience for her. Paris was lovely, but she missed her father so much that it physically hurt. Peggy knew her mother was disappointed with the results of their trip, but she didn't know how far she would go to make the separation permanent._

 _They returned to The Cortez as planned, and Peggy continued her act as a dutiful daughter. Until three weeks later, when her mother made a life-changing announcement during their monthly family dinner._

 _"I have good news, dear," Elizabeth told James sweetly, which should have set off an alarm in Peggy's head straight away._

 _"Yes, darling?" James asked with a creeping sense of suspicion._

 _Elizabeth smiled. "Our Peggy is getting married."_

 _Peggy was so shocked by the news that her jaw dropped, and the food she had been chewing fell out._

" _Close your mouth, dear. That's unattractive," her mother chided her._

" _Since when!?"_ _Peggy demanded._

" _Since I arranged it for you. Don't worry, you'll get the chance to meet him tomorrow," Elizabeth replied, leaving her chair to lean over and place her arms around her daughter. She lowered her voice so only Peggy would hear and whispered in her ear. "Do it, unless you want me to let your father in on your dirty little secret? Even he has his limits, you know."_

 _Peggy's stomach dropped and the blood drained from her face. She looked at her mother in horror. Would she really do that to her? She would. Peggy could see it in her eyes. She felt sick. She looked across the table at her father. She must look as terrible as she felt, because he was regarding her with a very concerned expression on his face. He would be disgusted if he knew. She couldn't bear the thought of what could happen if he found out. It felt like the room was closing in on her. She needed air. "M-May I be excused?"_

 _"Of course, darling," Elizabeth said, stroking her cheek gently and kissing her forehead. She could smell her distress. She didn't want to cause Peggy pain, but she could never allow her to be with James. Her daughter deserved far better than that psychopath._

 _"Peggy?" James asked with concern. Her reached for her as she passed his chair on her way out, but she slipped through his fingers. "I can't imagine why she's so upset. I'll have a talk with her later."_

 _"You'll do no such thing," Elizabeth told him sternly, returning to her seat. That would only make it harder for Peggy. "She knows what she has do. She'll thank me for it someday."_

 _James frowned. He didn't like being shut out, and he didn't like the effect the news seemed to have on Peggy. He wanted more details. "Who is the lucky man? What are his prospects? His chosen profession? How is his character?"_

 _"He's the son of an old friend in Paris. Peggy's met him before. His prospects aren't exactly ideal, but they seemed to enjoy each other's company," Elizabeth replied, lighting a cigarette. "He comes from a family with a title, but they lost most of their fortune during the depression. She will become a real countess in every sense of the word once they marry. And his character is far better than yours." Not that that was very difficult to achieve. "He adores Peggy. And the money you left her should be enough for them to live comfortably."_

 _James stroked his moustache. "Tell me, why did you feel the need to make this arrangement?"_

 _"Because she loves someone she can't have," Elizabeth replied truthfully. "This should help her get over it. Besides, Peggy isn't like us. You know that." It was why James never tried to pass his legacy of murder on to her the way he did every other young thing that walked into their hotel. Peggy may have become desensitized to violence and death, thanks to them, but she still had too much empathy to enjoy torture the way he did. "She deserves a shot at a normal life, a chance to have children of her own and grow old together with someone."_

 _He took a moment mull that over. He recalled the boys his daughter had brought home in the past. It had not escaped his notice that they all bore a certain resemblance to the first, the freak. His jaw clenched at the memory. It all came back to that damn boy. Peggy had been prepared to runaway with him. He must be the one she was pining for. But that boy was never coming back. He had made sure of that. Elizabeth was right. It would be better for Peggy to forget him. And he might enjoy having grandchildren around. He had no doubt his daughter would make a wonderful mother. "Well, I don't see what all the fuss is about, then. It's not as though she'll be leaving us forever." His wife's answers seemed sufficient enough for now. He would, of course, have to dig a little deeper before he could fully approve of his daughter's new suitor. "They can move into the other suite on the penthouse level."_

 _Elizabeth shot him a hard look. "Don't talk nonsense, James," she scolded him. "Once a girl gets married, she moves in with her husband, not the other way around. You know that."_

 _James cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Indeed? Still, it's not as though we will never see her again. Even if they move to the other side of town, Peggy can come visit us as often as she likes."_

 _Elizabeth scoffed in disbelief. "You seem to have forgotten your brain today, dear. Why on earth would they live here, when they can live in Paris? Her move to France should be a given."_

 _James froze. He looked up at his wife with a cold fury in his eyes. "I will not pay to have my daughter taken away from me, Elizabeth."_

 _"Then I suppose it's a good thing all of your money belongs to me now," she retorted coolly._

 _He clenched his fists until his nails cut into his skin. "If you go through with this, I will never forgive you."_

 _Once again, Elizabeth left her chair and moved closer to place a hand on the back of his, leaning down to look him straight in the eyes. "A condition I will be more than happy to live with."_ _With nothing more to say, she left him alone to brood over the knowledge that Peggy would soon be beyond his reach for the rest of her life. She would never allow him another chance to sink his claws into her._

 _James could no longer contain his anger. With a violent shout, he swept the plates from the table and stormed off to find Peggy. He would not stand for this. He would not allow anyone to take her away from him, not even her mother._

 _Peggy stripped down to her slip and lowered herself into the warm water in her tub. She didn't know what else to do. It was too much. Everything had become too much. She wanted to disappear, to stop having to feel so much. Despite the threat looming over her head, she knew she could never go through with the marriage. She knew it was her mother's way to separate her from her father. If she let it happen, she would never see him again. She loved him more than anyone or anything—more than life itself. It was a crushing, all consuming love. And it was eating her alive. Her heart was ripped out every time she had to watch him moon over her mother. But being apart from him was even more excruciating. She could stand short-lived affairs with other men, but the idea of being sent away—trapped for the rest of her life in a marriage with a man for whom she felt nothing—was unbearable. She would rather die._

 _James knocked strongly on his daughter's door. There was no answer. He knocked again. "Peggy? Open up, it's father. Peggy!" He tried the door and found it unlocked. An overwhelming feeling of dread hit him the pit of his stomach. Peggy valued her privacy. She always locked her door. He flew into the room, his eyes darting around wildly in search of her. And then they landed on the bathroom door. It was slightly ajar, and he could see light streaming through the crack. "Peggy!" He threw the door open and was horrified by what he found—there she was, his little girl, lying unconscious in a tub of bloody water with large, vertical slashes on her wrists. The bloody steak knife she had palmed from the dinner table lay discarded on the floor. "Elizabeth!" James roared, immediately springing into action. He jumped into the tub and lifted Peggy up out of the water, dragging her out so he could press towels against her wrists in an attempt to stem the blood flow._

 _Elizabeth came crashing into the room with the same wild desperation he felt, alerted to the danger by the overwhelming scent of her daughter's own blood that had permeated the air all the way down the hall to Bartholomew's room._

" _Save her!" James bellowed furiously._

 _They both knew these were not the kind of wounds a doctor could heal. Suicides weren't guaranteed to linger. They could lose her forever._

 _Elizabeth dropped to her knees on the floor beside her daughter and grabbed the steak knife, slitting her own wrist. She opened Peggy's mouth pressed the bleeding wound against her lips, letting her blood flow down her throat._

 _They waited. For a moment they feared they were too late, but to their unending relief, Peggy's wounds began to heal, and she opened her eyes again. They wept like children with relief._

 _Peggy's heart broke for her parents when she opened her eyes and saw what she had put them through. She had never seen them like this. She never meant to hurt them that way. Peggy started crying, too. She loved her parents. Her father couldn't help how she felt about him. Her mother was only trying to do what she thought was best for her. "I'm sorry, Daddy," she sobbed, clinging to him, while he clutched her desperately in his arms, and her mother kissed her head and stroked her hair. "I'm sorry, Mommy."_

" _Peggy, listen to me very carefully," James pleaded, cradling her head in his hands, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "From now on, you don't have to do anything you don't want to, darling. But you must promise me—promise me, Peggy—that you will never hurt yourself like this again." Peggy stared up at him with tears in her eyes. His heart clenched at the way her face seemed to crumple in on itself._

" _I promise."_

James finished his drink and poured himself another. He had forgiven Elizabeth for the incident, for Peggy's sake. But he would never forget. And he would never forgive himself for the part he played in pushing his daughter to it. He hadn't realized how deeply his own actions had hurt her. But he would do it again in a heartbeat. He would never allow anyone to take Peggy away from him. She was one of his only comforts in the afterlife; the most important. Her existence was irreplaceable.

Peggy set her empty glass down and pulled herself together. Her father told her not to get involved directly, but what about indirectly? She wouldn't let Will Drake take her father's home from him. Or Miss Evers'. Cleaning was her life. The least she could do was make certain her mother was aware of the situation.

Elizabeth was getting dressed when she heard a knock on her door. She could sense it was her daughter. "Come in," she called.

Peggy entered the suite and followed her mother's voice to the bathroom, where she was powdering her face. Her dress was still undone in the back.

"Zip me up?" Elizabeth requested, watching her daughter in the mirror. Even if she couldn't smell her daughter's distress, it would have been obvious from the expression on her face.

Peggy did as she asked, careful not to catch her long hair in the zipper. She decided to get straight to the point. "He wants to rip out Father's floor."

"Oh?" Elizabeth said. That would've been good news to her, if didn't trouble her daughter so much. She enjoyed watching James suffer. It was her favorite pastime.

"He told me I should leave it to you," Peggy added with a frown.

Elizabeth stood and turned around to face her. "As you should," she said, caressing her daughter's face with her gloved hand. "Don't worry, dear, you can leave Will Drake to me. I've already made plans for him."

Peggy could tell from her mother's tone that whatever her plans, Will would not survive them. She could venture a guess that it would have something to do with his money. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Not at the moment," Elizabeth replied, knowing her daughter would prefer to be included. "But I'll let you know if something comes up." She frowned when she sensed something displeasing. Something she needed to take care of right away.

Peggy turned and watched as her mother left first. She could also smell the murderous intent in Tristan's blood across the hall. "Please do."

With her daughter finally voicing her concern, Elizabeth decided it was time to enact her plan for Will Drake. She approached the designer's door and silently opened it. Her suspicions were correct. Tristan had seduced her target on his sofa and had raised a flip knife to finish him off.

But Tristan paused when he noticed her presence. He froze with his knife in the air and turned his head to look at her.

The Countess shook her head at him and gestured for him to back off.

Tristan stared at her in disbelief, confused and irritated that she would stop him.

Elizabeth shook her head again. Not yet.

Tristan lowered the knife with great reluctance and pushed Will's sucking mouth away from his chest.

Will gasped and lifted himself up to follow him. "Stay..."

Tristan gritted his teeth and pushed him back down by his neck.

Will gasped and gazed up at the model with admiration, smiling at what he thought was a playful act.

"Another time," Tristan said. He gave the douchebag a wink and light slap on the face.

"What..." Will said, confused when he suddenly walked away.

"Rough day?" Liz asked when Peggy strolled over to the bar. The poor thing looked emotionally exhausted. She immediately retrieved the decanter for Peggy's private stash and mixed her a glass of Liz's little somethin'-somethin' for starters.

"No more than usual," Peggy replied with a sigh, accepting the glass. She downed its bloody contents like she hadn't fed for days. "I think I might go out tonight."

"Oh? Won't your father be disappointed?" Liz asked. It wasn't like her to put off a date with him on a whim.

"We've had dinner two nights in a row," Peggy answered with a frown, leaning on the bar to prop her head up on her hand.

"Only because you were late the first," Liz reminded her.

Peggy furrowed her brow, wondering how she had known that. Had her father complained? "Well, he can wait one night. To be honest, I'm a little mad at him right now." She knew she could confide in Liz. She could be trusted not to blab on her.

"May I ask why?" Liz inquired carefully. Trouble between Mr. March and his daughter often meant trouble for everyone—not because of Peggy, who had enough manners not to take her frustrations out on the innocent, but because of her father, who would take his out on anyone but her.

"Because he never lets me help him," Peggy pouted.

"Well, you're his little girl," Liz said sympathetically. "You know how fathers are with their daughters. He only wants to protect you."

Peggy huffed in annoyance, but not at Liz. "I'm not a little girl anymore. Shouldn't _grown_ children be able to protect their parents, too? How else are we supposed to repay them for everything they've done for us?"

"I would think being happy was enough," Liz replied sagely.

Peggy frowned. She suspected that was impossible in her case, since her forbidden and unrequited love for her father left a hole in her heart that prevented her from ever being completely happy with anyone else.

Their part of the hotel was so silent both of them easily heard the sound of the front door being yanked open in the lobby bellow.

"Hey, Dono," Iris called brightly.

Liz and Peggy shared a knowing look. Nothing could brighten Iris's day like seeing her son. And nothing could darken his like seeing her. One didn't have to be infected with an ancient blood virus to smell the impending drama. They stayed quiet to listen, but at least had enough manners not to lean over the railing to gawk.

"I've been waiting for you," Iris continued.

Donovan didn't say a word.

"Look, you need any, uh, help packing?" Iris asked him. "I, um, I printed out some Craigslist ads for apartments for us. Some nice two-bedrooms. And this one... this is... Get this, this is the building in Santa Monica where they captured Whitey Bulger. Just look at it—it's glamorous, right?"

Donovan finally gave her a response. "I will live with the addicts in shitter's alley in a box in MacArthur Park, covered in the piss and shit of this horror of a city before I even consider living under the same roof as you again."

"You're a drama queen," Iris responded, unperturbed. "Baby, this is our chance. This is what we've been waiting for. Listen..."

"Don't touch me," Donovan snapped at her.

"She never loved you," Iris pushed. "She was just using you. I knew that cold snake would get bored. Not because of you. You know, because that's just how snakes are."

Peggy frowned at the unflattering description of her mother. It wasn't entirely untrue, but she still didn't like it when people spoke badly of her parents. She could hear the elevator come down, reaching the lobby's level.

Donovan scoffed at his mother. "You really have no idea how much I hate you, do you? And I get that you never wanted to take any authentic interest in me or my needs, but I have worked so hard over the past few years to get you to notice how much I despise you."

The elevator doors began to close, but something stopped them. Probably Iris.

"Now you hold on a minute. I gave my life to you," Iris told him. "You have no clue how hard it was for me to raise you and the sacrifices that I made."

"Name one, one that didn't serve your perverted view of yourself," Donovan challenged her.

"Your father," she said seriously. "You think it was an easy choice, kicking him out? Becoming a single mother at that time? Nobody did that, but I did, because he was nowhere man enough to raise you."

"My father was the best thing in my life," Donovan retorted spitefully. "I once hid out in the trunk of his Buick, and he made it all the way to Bakersfield before he noticed and took me back home."

Iris laughed. "Imagine that. He didn't even know his own son was in the trunk of his car. The guy was an asshole; he was a moron."

"Do you know, when you kicked him out, he sat me down and asked me to promise that when I was old enough I would run away?" Donovan asked.

Iris scoffed in disbelief. "I had a plan."

"Oh, she had a plan," Donovan laughed. "I went to an AA meeting once, and after I stood up and shared about you, people came up to me, hardcore addicts, and they were like, 'Wow, man, no wonder you use.' Every choice you made was a disaster. Dad... That insane vegetarian cult."

"The 'Breatharians' were cutting-edge. They were using food as medicine."

"I had so much fiber in my diet, I shit my pants at school."

Peggy nearly choked on the new drink Liz poured for her. That must have been a horrifying experience. Kids could be cruel.

"Fine, you make a list of all the ways I have failed you," Iris told him. "And you know what I say to your list? Shit on it. Because my list beats yours. Item one, I gave you life. Item two, I saved your life."

"I wanted to die!" Donovan screamed at her. "Coke, crack, heroin—none of them could do it, so I decided death was the only way away from you. I chose it."

Iris's voice broke along with her heart. "You hated me like that? And you let me stay here looking after you?"

"A real mother would have let her son die in peace. She would have buried me. And grieved."

"What mother wouldn't have wanted her son to live? Wouldn't have done everything possible to save him?"

"You didn't bring me back for me," Donovan told her. "You brought me back for you. I'm leaving here. Tonight."

Peggy heard the front door open again.

Iris whimpered. "But... what am I supposed to do? I don't know who I am if I'm not your mother."

The door closed.

"Honestly, if that is really true," Donovan said, "you should kill yourself."

Peggy wanted to slap him, hard. No one should talk to their mother that way, no matter what she had done.

"You should do it even if it isn't," he added.

Iris sobbed as the door opened and shut again. Donovan was gone, for good this time.

Elizabeth poured Will Drake a glass of red wine in his suite. She let a single drop fall on his white shirt. "I'm so sorry," she told him. "That was clumsy of me." It was an excuse for her to reach down and touch his chest. To seduce him, she had donned a black Stephanie Roland gown. Peggy called it her 'wind chime dress.'

"You never need to apologize for pouring a glass of Château Margaux," he told her.

She didn't think so. She had been saving it for Peggy's birthday, but she didn't think her daughter would mind, given the circumstances. She sauntered over to set it down on a small table between his chair and the couch. "I was afraid you'd think it was too much."

"Oh, you mean the dress? The night out on the town? This nightcap? You know I'm gay."

"I'm not stupid," she told him, continuing to circle the room. "We're destined for something much more... intimate." She seated herself in the chair across from his. "What if I told you... Will Drake had to die?"

Will swallowed and stood up, crossing the room to gaze out of his window, or his reflection in it. "Then you know the truth. The well is dry. Just yesterday I drew a pair of Bermudas in cannabis print. So much for the West Coast influence."

Elizabeth left her chair to join him. "I happen to think you're a genius. But you've been comfortable for far too long. You need to burn... so you can rise from the ashes."

"Kill Will," he said, glancing back at her as she snaked her hands up and around his neck. He sighed. "You're giving me dangerous thoughts."

She spun him around so their lips were only inches apart. "All great ideas are deadly."

He smiled and began walking her backwards to the couch. "I feel the same way with you right now as I did when I kissed my first man."

She spun him again to push him down into a chair. "How many times have you been with a woman?"

"A few. But they all ended... unfulfilled."

"No danger in that tonight," she told him, moving in to slide her hand over his crotch.

He moaned with pleasure into their kiss.

And then Tristan ruined the moment by throwing the doors open in a dramatic entrance.

"What is this shit?" he demanded angrily. "Where did you get the balls to eat out of my dish, man?"

"I'll call you later," Elizabeth whispered in Will's ear. "By the way, you're hard."

He groaned when she pulled away.

Elizabeth moved to grab her bottle of wine and took it with her as she left the room, sparing neither man a glance on her way out. She slammed the door shut.

Tristan stared after her in disbelief.

It didn't take long for him to track her to the lounge. "So that's it," he asked, approaching her pocket booth. "It's just over between us?"

"Don't be such a child," she told him.

"What am I supposed to think? I mean, I don't even get it," he said. "All he has is money."

"The you _do_ get it."

"What? You're rich."

"I used to be," Elizabeth confessed. It was truth that hurt to admit. She tapped her finger on the table, indicating he should sit. "And then I met Bernie. Madoff was very good at separating people from their money, because he'd make you beg to give it to him. All my rich friends got richer, 20% return every year. But he wouldn't take mine, not until he could get it all. The stocks, the bonds, the hotel. I should have followed my daughter's example and walked away." Having grown up during the depression and witnessing first hand how bad investments had ruined many of her friends' families, Peggy had a strict policy against keeping all of her eggs in one basket. She never let Madoff make her beg. "Bernie went to prison, and I lost everything."

"So that's why you didn't want me to kill Drake?" Tristan asked, furrowing his brow.

She leaned in close until only a few inches separated their lips. "Will Drake can't die until _after_ I marry him and take every goddamn penny."

Tristan grinned when he realized what that meant and laughed. He was going to enjoy this. "I met your daughter, by the way. She's smokin'. I'd totally bang her."

"Careful," Elizabeth cautioned, pressing a finger to his lips. "That's my little girl you're talking about."

James paced his room irritably. He had been hoping to dine with Peggy again that evening, but she wasn't in her room or any of her usual haunts when he looked for her to ask. "Miss Evers!"

"Yes, Mr. March?" she said, appearing on command.

"Where is Peggy?"

"Oh," she stammered. "Well, I don't rightly know..."

James turned on her. "You _don't_ know?!" he yelled incredulously. "I ordered you to keep an eye on her!"

"I did, sir! I left her in the bar with Cleopatra while I took care of a mess on the 5th floor. I only lost her when she left the hotel," she explained quickly in her own defense.

"I see," James said, his jaw still tense. "So she went out to feed."

"Well, sir, I doubt that," Miss Evers said carefully. "Cleopatra served her blood at the bar. If I may venture a guess, I believe Miss Peggy went out to see a young man."

" _Young man?"_ he asked with a frown. "What young man? Who is he?"

"Oh, Mr. March. All I know is what I happened to overhear in a conversation between Miss Peggy and the Countess. It seems she met a boy the night they went to the outdoor theater event, but she didn't kill him because she wanted to see him again."

This news instantly put James on alert. The thought that Peggy might be seeing boys outside of the hotel had never occurred to him. She knew she was supposed to bring them back with her, not go off with them. How was he supposed to make sure they didn't hurt her if she let them take her somewhere beyond his reach?

Assuming she would know more, he sought Elizabeth out and found her in a booth in his lounge with the young man from that morning. He could tell from their posture toward each other that he must be his wife's new lover, but he had bigger problems at the moment. "I need to talk to you about Peggy," he told her without preamble, not caring in the slightest whether he might be interrupting something.

Elizabeth sighed in annoyance. She could guess what this was about.

"Peggy? Oh, your daughter, right?" Tristan said, glancing at her before looking back at James. "You banging her or something?"

Elizabeth could have ripped his throat out for the suggestion. She didn't need anyone putting that kind of idea in either of their heads.

James was merely bewildered. He furrowed his brow and frowned at the young man. "I would never hit my daughter."

It was Tristan's turn to be bewildered. "Whoa, daughter? But didn't you say she's your..." he trailed off as he glanced between them, realization dawning his face when his brain connected the dots. "Whoa," he chuckled in amazement.

"Yes, quite," James agreed before briskly turning to face his wife again. "As I said, I need to talk to you about our daughter."

"Let me guess," Elizabeth said boredly. "You can't find her, and you've somehow discovered a boy's involved. She's a big girl, James. She can do what she likes."

"You just called her your little girl earlier," Tristan reminded her, curious at the exchange.

Elizabeth shot him a scathing glare. "Why are you still here? Go back to the room," she ordered sternly. "I'll meet you there."

Tristan held his hands up in defense and left to give them some space.

"We can't guarantee her safety if she keeps going off on her own like this. What if something happens to her out there?" James rejoined sternly. "You know how dangerous men can be."

"I also know how dangerous women can be," she retorted sharply. "Stop smothering her, James. Peggy has hunted solo many times without incident, and she can take care of herself."

"I am not smothering her," he huffed. "I'm protecting her." If Peggy died outside the hotel, he would never see her again.

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at him. "You _are_ smothering her. She only plays along with you in order to avoid hurting your feelings. She doesn't need your protection any more than I do." She paused to light a cigarette. "She has a right to her own life, and if you keep this up, she's going to come to hate you sooner or later. I know I do." She turned to blow the smoke in his face, but he was already gone. "Good riddance," she scoffed.

Peggy moaned and panted as she finally came. She sighed and rolled off of Dylan, who was still sprawled out with his long hair fanned out around his head in a euphoric daze from his own multiple orgasms. She lit a cigarette and started getting dressed. This seemed to sober him up, because she felt his hand on her skin, sliding around to grab the inside of her lower left thigh.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

She could hear the frown in his voice, and his tone was more demanding than she would have liked. "Home," she answered, stepping out of his grip.

He was too exhausted to chase after her. "Call me." He said it like an order.

Paused with her back to him, Peggy rolled her eyes and sighed. Why did it always turn out like this? She sleeps with them once or twice, and they think they own her. She told him from the beginning she wasn't looking for a serious relationship. "I'll think about it." She shut the door behind her on her way out.

James decided to wait up for Peggy, helping himself to a chair in her room. He wanted to make sure she made it home safely, and to confirm if Miss Evers's suspicions were correct. She didn't return until dawn. Her hair was tousled, like someone had pulled on and ran his hands through it. That was upsetting enough, but he stayed invisible to see what else he might learn, and it was only when she dropped her coat that he saw the damning evidence of her recreation outside. Her upper back was peppered with love bites, already well on their way to healing. It was even worse when she dropped her dress. His jaw tensed when he saw there were more trailing the whole length of her back. He left the room when she reached for her bra.

James stalked down the hall to begin making preparations. Peggy did have a lover outside the hotel, one she may not be planning to kill. He could feel an alarm going off inside his head. The whole situation reeked of danger. To say it bore the need for further investigation would be an understatement.

He returned to his daughter's room later, intending to leave her a note informing her that they would be having dinner together that evening. But when he saw her sleeping so peacefully in her bed, he couldn't help sitting down to watch. He often did this when she was an infant, watch her sleep. No matter how fussy or cranky she was with everyone else, all he had to do was hold her. It used to drive her mother up the wall. Peggy would fall silent the instant she was in his arms, and gaze up at him with those angelic doe eyes and a rosy glow on her round cheeks, then nod off against his chest. He would lay her down in her crib and watch her little chest rise and fall, keeping a quiet watch over her. She always looked so innocent. Even now. Especially now. Her waves of golden curls fell around her head like a halo. She wasn't wearing a stitch of makeup. Her face was clean, and he could see she still had those rosy cheeks, but they were no longer round with baby fat. A refined nose and cheekbones. Long lashes. Full lips. He hated to admit it, but Elizabeth was right. Peggy wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a young woman. She had been for a long while now; he just didn't want to see it. He still wasn't ready to face it yet, so he stayed where he was and continued to watch her sleep, watching her chest rise and fall under the sheets.

Peggy awoke late that afternoon to find a handwritten note from her father, inviting her to dinner, waiting for her on the pillow next to hers. The formal tone of the letter suggested she might want to dress up more than usual, but she also had the feeling it meant she was about to be scolded again. She couldn't be sure which. She sighed and ran a hand through her messy hair. She hoped it was Miss Evers who delivered it. It would be mortifying to have her father see her in such an unattractive state. She used to like it when he would sit with her and wait for her fall asleep when she was younger, but she had a hard enough time convincing him she was an adult now without him watching her drool into her pillow. She ran her hand over her dry pillowcase. Not that she actually did drool, but still.

She got up, showered, and dressed for dinner. For tonight she chose an elegant red velvet Tadashi Shoji even gown with long sleeves and high neckline in the front that plunged in the back to show off a panel of black lace over her pale skin. She curled and pinned her hair up in a 1920s style faux bob with a sparkling onyx barrette and donned a matching set of drop earrings, bracelet, and ring from Tiffany's olive leaf collection in silver and pearl, and a long string of pearls wrapped around her neck. She stepped out of her room in a pair of shimmery black T-strap heels and headed for the elevator.

James was so deep in thought, that he didn't hear Peggy's knock on his door and only realized she was there when she leaned down to greet him with a kiss on the cheek. It was the usual greeting between them, but he did not experience his usual reaction when he stood to return her greeting and got his first full look at her.

Peggy frowned with concern over the way he was looking at her, like he couldn't believe what she was wearing. "It's still well within the rules," she said defensively.

James hadn't been aware that he was staring, and it occurred to him that he had stopped breathing, something which would have been a real problem if he were still alive. It took him a moment to make the connection to what she had just said. "Yes. So it is," he replied, still feeling disoriented. It wasn't so much about what she was wearing as how she wore it. She was devastating. The dress highlighted her slender curves and its soft fabric flowed over her when she moved like a second skin. This was not a little girl's dress. _She_ was not a little girl. And that was the whole problem in a nutshell. Ever since he flipped the switch that allowed him to become aware of his daughter's growth into a young woman, he had been unable to shut it off again. He didn't know how to treat her anymore. It felt as if a great divide had opened up between them. Peggy was still staring at him with concern. "Come, sit," he said, moving to pull her chair out for her. "Tell me about your day."

Peggy raised an eyebrow, a little surprised by the gesture since he usually let her seat herself, but she accepted without keeping him waiting. "There isn't much to tell. I slept through it until I woke up and saw your note."

"Late night?" he inquired cautiously, careful to keep his tone casual. With his own system of internal guidance haywire, he decided to fall back on the advice Elizabeth gave him against pushing too hard.

"Yes," she replied while Miss Evers served them. "It took me awhile to get what I wanted." She felt uncomfortable discussing this topic with her father, but he wouldn't give her a chance to change the subject.

"Were you out hunting with your mother?" he asked, even though he already knew the answer. He wanted to see how truthful she would be with him.

"No. I was out with an acquaintance."

James felt his jaw tense. She let a mere acquaintance do _that_ to her? "Anyone I know?"

Peggy really wished he would drop it. "No. I only met him recently. He's never been to the hotel."

"You should bring him by," he suggested.

Her stomach twisted at the thought of her father meeting one of her replacement lovers. She would rather cut her eye out with a spork. "I'm not going to kill him."

James froze with his fork inches away from his mouth. She wasn't going to kill him? Was that why she hadn't brought this _acquaintance_ back home? Did she somehow discover the part he played in frightening off the last boy she was serious about?

"Not yet, anyway," she added, too focused on her plate to notice his reaction to her previous statement.

Relief flooded James. "Be sure to bring him here when you do," he advised her. "Cleaning up and disposing of bodies can be very difficult without the proper facilities."

Dinner had been so awkward that Peggy decided she needed a little nightcap to relax and headed for the bar. That turned out to be a mistake. She barely had a drink in her hand when she was suddenly waylaid by none other than Dylan, the very last person she wanted to see at the moment.

"Finally!" he said anxiously, stealing the seat next to her as he grabbed her by the wrist. "They wouldn't give me your room number, so I was waiting for—"

"Did you follow me?" Peggy interrupted him with a frown. She had never told him anything about the hotel or given out any details about her address.

"You never called," he answered, not even bothering to deny it.

She glared at him. "It's barely been a day, and if you think stalking is attractive, then you've clearly seen _Twilight_ too many times," she fumed, ready to yank herself free from his grip and tell him it was over and to never come near her again. By invading her privacy like this, he had broken a cardinal rule with her. He was becoming too obsessive, too controlling. And from the smell of his blood and the look in his eyes, she knew that he had become dangerous, too. He would never stop chasing her, and his efforts to do so could endanger her family. She couldn't have him expose their inhuman nature and rob them of their one safe haven. So, instead of sending him away, she gave him an irresistible smile and invited him up to her room instead under the premise of continuing their conversation somewhere more private, unaware that her father, who also felt in need of a particularly stiff drink, had witnessed the entire exchange from a distance.

James was surprised. This boy wasn't like the others he had seen her with. He looked nothing like them. This change in her perceived preferences was as puzzling to him as the sickening twist he felt in his insides when his stomach dropped at the smile Peggy had given him. He couldn't help but follow them.

"I really enjoyed last night," Dylan told Peggy, caressing the soft, bare skin on her hand gently as they rode the elevator up to her room together.

James gripped the railing on the wall he leaned against tightly at the memory of all the marks he had seen on her body, which he now knew had been caused by the cretin in front of him.

"I know you did," she responded coolly without looking at him, making the boy frown.

James tensed when he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her closer to him.

"Why are you being so cold?" he demanded angrily.

"Why are you being so stupid?" she countered sternly. "I told you the first night we met that you had to respect my privacy if you wanted any kind of relationship with me. And yet you followed me home and tracked me down like a lost puppy." She yanked herself free from his grip and exited the elevator as soon as the doors opened. She marched down the hall so swiftly that it was difficult to keep up with her, and Dylan rushed to catch her.

"Because you're mine!" he shouted and tried to grab her again when she had to pause to unlock her door. She dodged him and turned the knob to open it.

"No, I'm not."

The moment the words left her lips, Dylan tackled her violently into the room, and James's eyes widened in alarm as the door slammed shut behind them, cutting off his view of them. Fearing the worst, the serial killer immediately threw the door open again, prepared to strangle his daughter's attacker with his bare hands, but there was no need. Peggy, who had actually been purposefully goading him into losing his cool, had seen the attack coming and was already thwarting her unstable lover's attempt to force himself on her with a well-placed knee to the groin and scrambling away to grab the nearest blunt object to bash him over the head with. Her would-be rapist was out before he even knew what hit him. James stared at her in awe. He knew perfectly well that his daughter was capable of killing—he had taught her himself—but it was his first time seeing her defend herself in a real struggle without any aid from him or her mother. Elizabeth was right. She didn't need him to protect her anymore. He was proud, but he also felt his inner turmoil deepen. The less Peggy needed him, the easier it would be for her to leave. He watched the way her shoulders moved up and down as she breathed in and out, staring down at the body on the floor with a troubled expression on her face, and carefully closed the distance between them to comfort her. He was a little surprised to hear a soft chuckle bubbling up from her throat and realized she was shaking with laughter rather than distress. Peggy flinched and raised the candlestick again when he touched her from behind, but he she immediately relaxed and lowered it when she saw it was him. "What is it, darling?" he said gently, brushing her hair away from her face.

Peggy, though wondering why he happened to be there, smiled ruefully and showed him the blood stain on the base of the candlestick still clutched in her hand. "Ms. Scarlet, in the bedroom, with a candlestick."

James smiled at his daughter's sense of humor. "He isn't dead yet, darling. Shall we finish him off together?"

"No," she said with a small smile, disappointing him, as she slowly pulled away to set the candlestick down. "I was thinking we could give him to Jeffery."

"Ah," he said, considerably cheered by the thought. She always was a clever girl. He had been worried for a moment that she had rejected him for other reasons, but she was simply thinking ahead to tomorrow night's party. And by the time the acid finished eating through his victim's brains, there was nothing left to hold their spirits there, so she wouldn't have to worry about ever running into him again. "That's a lovely idea, darling." He smiled and placed a kiss on her forehead. "I'm sure Jeffery will enjoy him immensely."

"Speaking of which, won't the first of our guests be arriving soon?" she asked with a glance at the clock. It had just struck midnight.

"Yes!" James said brightly when he saw the time. Ricky liked to arrive early, so he had already arranged a special treat for him. "Shall we greet them together?"

Peggy's smile brightened at the happy sparkle in her father's eyes. "Wouldn't miss it for the world. I'll join you once I've finished clearing this up."

James grinned and called for Miss Evers to come help her.


End file.
